Keystone Law appoints 15 new partners from the UK's top firms
ARTICLE19 August 2020
Keystone Law has appointed 15 new partners from several of the UK's top law firms, including Brown Rudnick, McGuireWoods LLP, Clifford Chance, Clyde & Co and Farrer & Co.
The high-profile lawyers joining the firm from across multiple practice areas will further strengthen the firm's offering of legal services and demonstrates the growing interest in the Keystone model, which supports lawyers to provide top-level advice and services whilst utilising cutting-edge technology to be able to work flexibly.
James Knight, CEO and founder of Keystone Law, said:
"I am delighted to welcome these excellent lawyers to Keystone. Their breadth of experience enhances our existing capabilities and reinforces our full-service offering to assist clients with their complex legal requirements.
"Highly experienced lawyers continue to be attracted to the flexibility and freedom our firm can provide, as our latest hires demonstrate. Now that many lawyers have been working remotely during lockdown, the appetite for an alternative to the traditional law firm model is stronger than ever."
The new appointments are:
Henry Kikoyo — Restructuring and Insolvency
Joining from Brown Rudnick
Henry focuses his practice on debt and corporate restructuring/turnaround, corporate refinancing and debt trading, acting for bank and non-bank lenders, development finance institutions, bondholders, distressed investors, governments, state-owned entities and private/public companies.
Henry's specific focus is on restructuring and turnaround in emerging markets, particularly those occurring in Africa and Eastern Europe. He also has extensive experience in matters concerning complex cross-border restructuring transactions and has been a key advisor in major transactions across Europe, North and South America, as well as Australia and Africa.
Jeremy Davis — Corporate
Joining from McGuireWoods LLP
Jeremy is a corporate solicitor and an expert in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, private equity and joint ventures. He has considerable experience in cross-border mergers and acquisitions involving both US clients investing into the UK and Europe and multinationals expanding their businesses across Europe.
Jeremy is a trusted adviser to clients from a wide variety of industries such as manufacturing, packaging, information technology, metals, oil field services, and recruitment. He advises clients ranging in size from start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations.
Sheena Ray — Commercial Property
Joining from Clifford Chance
Sheena is a commercial property solicitor who advises a variety of high-profile national and regional clients, particularly in the retail sector. She has extensive experience of working with investor clients on the sales, acquisitions and ongoing asset management of all aspects of their portfolios.
Sheena also advises on the commercial property aspects of corporate acquisitions, as well as commercial development, distressed asset sales and refinancings.
Fara Mohammad — Islamic Finance
Joining from Clyde & Co
Fara is a specialist adviser to international companies and individuals on their inward investments into the UK, Europe and MEA. She works with businesses, funds and individuals on the financing of their investments and often acts as external general counsel for all legal aspects related to the investment.
Fara specialises in Shariah-compliant matters and advises on many types of Shariah-compliant transactions covering a range of asset types, investment classes and industry sectors.
Sharmila Mehta — Immigration
Joining from Farrer & Co
Sharmila is a specialist UK immigration and nationality solicitor with more than 25 years' experience in the field, working with senior executives, finance houses and multinational companies. She has particular experience in Tier 2 licence, compliance and global mobility issues.
Sharmila also works extensively with international family offices and prominent individuals from around the globe, helping them make the UK their home.
Chris Botsman — Dispute Resolution
Joining from Financial Conduct Authority
Chris is an experienced litigator who advises companies and individuals on contract disputes, and banking and financial services disputes. In addition to his litigation practice, he advises on bankruptcy and insolvency law.
Chris currently practises as a solicitor in England & Wales but is also qualified in New York, and Australia where he is also a qualified barrister in the region of New South Wales.
Jamie Horner — Sports and Entertainment
Joining from Ashfords
Jamie provides specialist legal advice to the sports, events and entertainment industries. His expertise extends across motorsport, rugby, cricket, golf and football, as well as Olympic sports including athletics, rowing, and alpine and freestyle skiing. He also advises on legal issues connected with a wide range of live events, as well as providing transactional and litigation advice to talent agencies, high-profile actors, television and sports personalities. Jamie's wider expertise includes advising on legal matters relating to art and antiques and, in particular, classic, vintage and historic cars.
Jamie is a CEDR accredited mediator. He has wide-ranging experience of High Court and County Court proceedings, as well as national and international arbitration, mediation and national and international sports tribunals. In addition, he is chair of Snowsport England and an RFU Registered Agent.
Simon Chalkley — Intellectual Property
Joining from Wiggins
Simon is an intellectual property and commercial solicitor with almost 30 years' experience advising brand, creative and technology-driven businesses on IP law, strategy, transactions, and IP contract disputes. He is a recognised expert in transactions relating to the commercial exploitation of all IP rights including licensing, distribution (including selective distribution), franchising, and technology transfer agreements. Simon advises businesses both in the UK and internationally.
Simon's experience spans a wide range of business sectors, in particular fashion/retail, video games, consumer products, software and engineering.
David Bennett — Corporate
Joining from Druces
David is a corporate solicitor specialising in fund raising, M&A, joint ventures and public markets transactions. He acts for companies, investors, brokers, corporate finance advisers and NOMADs.
David advises on transactions of all different sizes, including cross-border transactions but focuses on transactions under £50 million.
Terrence Trainor — Family law
Joining from Vardags
Terrence advises on international and domestic family law, with a particular focus on complex, high-value cases including divorce and financial proceedings, as well as children's matters arising from the family breakdown. His work often involves cross-border disputes and cases that involve contested jurisdictions and has spanned Europe, Middle East, Russia, Asia and the United States.
Nick Weaser — Music and entertainment
Joining from Clintons
Nick is an expert adviser to the music and wider entertainment industry on a variety of legal and commercial matters. His expertise, for which he is recognised and respected, includes advising a diverse range of artists, producers, songwriters and managers on all aspects of their careers and across the full spectrum of music industry contracts. He has a particular focus on representing emerging talent.
Rachel Lemon – Family Law
Joining from Munday's
Rachel is an experienced solicitor and accredited mediator specialising in family law. She advises on all elements of relationship breakdown including divorce, separation and the associated financial and child arrangements.
Rachel deals with complex financial disputes between couples where there are mid- to high-value assets involved. She is also skilled at dealing with disputes relating to children both within and outside of the court process. She has had success in the High Court, particularly with applications to remove children from this jurisdiction.
Paul-Michael Rebus — Corporate Finance
Joining from Borden Ladner Gervais (Toronto)
Paul-Michael is an Internationally recognised dual-qualified (English/New York law) solicitor in finance/corporate finance, specialising in debt and equity capital markets, securitisation and structured products.
Paul-Michael advises corporates, financial institutions, rating agencies and other market intermediaries across a number of sectors to create bespoke products tailored to meet specific business, legal, regulatory and jurisdictional needs of his clients.
Chris Bannister — Corporate and Commercial
Joining from Greenwoods GRM
Chris specialises in corporate and commercial law and advises businesses of all sizes and in various business sectors in relation to their business transactions and contracts. He helps businesses and their owners and management teams to manage and complete corporate mergers, demergers, acquisitions and disposals, and is also an expert in advising on management buy-ins and buy-outs.
Chris also helps businesses to negotiate and implement a range of commercial contracts including NDAs, co-operation and joint venture agreements, distribution, agency, franchise and licence agreements.
Sally Pilott — Commercial property
Joining from DMT Legal
Sally Pilott is an experienced commercial property partner who acts for retail, leisure and institutional clients with large property portfolios, and residential developers.
Sally focuses her practice on sales and acquisitions, development work, general property management, landlord and tenant matters, and portfolio management. In particular, she has advised on some large-scale restructuring projects and disposals and some large sites for residential development and onward sales.