Hannah Caton
Workshop leader – associate, Trowers & Hamlins LLP
Hannah is a solicitor in Trowers & Hamlins LLP’s property dispute resolution and litigation team having qualified in March 2024.
Louise Barber
Panellist – partner, Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP
Louise Barber is a partner in our UK corporate practice group. Louise has a wide-ranging practice that encompasses corporate finance, public and private mergers and acquisitions (including public takeovers), equity fund raisings, joint ventures and corporate governance.
Louise’s equity capital markets experience includes advising on public takeovers and initial public offering, as well as secondary fundraising transactions on both the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market and AIM.
Rob Elvin
Panellist – partner, Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP
Rob Elvin is a solicitor-advocate, head of Squire Patton Boggs’ European environmental safety and health practice group and the firm’s training principal. Rob primarily focuses on leading large and complex investigations across a broad range of health, safety and environmental matters.
His expertise also covers nuisance, noise abatement, pollution, permit appeals and judicial review, and he is renowned for corporate defence (including corporate manslaughter), inquest law, public inquiries, and product safety, liability and recall.
Leo Tarn
Workshop leader – legal technologist, Addleshaw Goddard
Leo Tarn is a legal technologist in Addleshaw Goddard’s innovation team.
Sarah Teal
Panellist – partner, Shoosmiths
Sarah Teal is a partner in the corporate restructuring and advisory team at Shoosmiths. She represents banks, asset-based lenders, financiers, restructuring professionals, directors and management teams, advising on all issues arising in financially stressed situations.
Sam Coward
Workshop leader – partner, Trowers & Hamlins LLP
Sam is a partner in Trowers & Hamlins’ dispute resolution and litigation team in Manchester. Sam is a property litigator who acts for a variety of clients across the private, public and social housing sectors on a broad range of property related disputes.
In particular, Sam regularly advises on landlord and tenant disputes, including on recovering rent and service charge arrears and enforcing lease terms.
Alice Ferguson
Panellist – trainee, Ward Hadaway
Alice is a trainee solicitor and currently sits in the social housing litigation department in Manchester. She deals with a variety of regional clients in a contentious capacity.
Alice sat with the housing and corporate department in her previous seats and gained experience of transactional matters. She’s also part of the firm’s Trainee Social Committee and assists the fundraising committee.
Before joining the firm, Alice had a background in litigation and worked for a local authority’s childcare department.
Sam Dalton
Panellist – trainee, Gateley Legal
Abigail Wood
Workshop leader – associate, Shoosmiths
Abigail is an associate in the real estate team, based in the Manchester office. She acts on a variety of commercial property matters, including acting for developers on city centre infrastructure as well as housebuilders on acquisition and development of sites across the north west. Her recent work includes assisting with due diligence for a £62 million refinance and acting on a leasehold buyback scheme of over 400 properties.
Sam Chadwick
Panellist – director, DWF Group Limited
Alice Spencer
Panellist – trainee, Trowers & Hamlins LLP
Alice is a fourth-seat trainee solicitor based in our Manchester office. She’s currently working in the governance team, having previously completed seats in real estate, employment and international real estate as part of an international secondment to our office in Bahrain.
Harold Brako
Panellist, keynote speaker – partner, Addleshaw Goddard
Harold is a finance litigation and disputes partner, with particular expertise in banking, asset-based lending and receivables financing disputes, both cross border and domestic. He provides advice to the major UK clearing banks, challenger banks, international banks and a wide range of finance sector clients (which include private equity and other independent funders).
Harold headed up Addleshaw Goddard’s Manchester office until May 2024 (having also previously founded and headed up the Manchester office of Shoosmiths) and is a member of Addleshaw’s board.
Lorna Harris
Workshop leader – partner, Gateley Legal
Lorna specialises in all aspects of employment law. She acts for larger corporate clients, with sites and operations throughout the UK, in a range of sectors including utilities and energy, health, retail and hospitality.
Lorna has an extensive litigation practice and acts in many complex, high value and multi-day employment tribunal cases, in particular she has been involved in some high value whistleblowing and protective award disputes.