Phil Hutchinson
Workshop leader, principal associate, Mills & Reeve LLP
Phil is a commercial litigator and specialist in sports litigation and sports regulatory matters, with a particular focus on the football industry. He has significant experience in working on match fixing and doping cases across a variety of sports, having acted on some of the biggest cases in the industry. Phil also has expertise in advising on player transfers in football, most notably where work permits are required. Phil also regularly advises clients in the automotive industry on all aspects of litigation.
Olivia Sinfield
Workshop leader, partner, Osborne Clarke LLP
Olivia is a partner at Osborne Clarke. She advises employers and senior executives in the full range of contentious and non-contentious issues arising during the employment life cycle including; employment tribunal litigation; restrictive covenants and injunctions; restructuring and collective redundancies; and business critical issues including board disputes, change management and discrimination claims.
Olivia is actively involved in advising clients on issues relating to the future of work and helping them to adapt to the changing ways in which we work in light of changes fast forwarded by COVID and digitalisation. She has spoken at numerous external events in respect of this transformation driver and is recognised as a ‘go to’ adviser in this regard.
Karolina Lewicka
Panellist, trainee solicitor, RPC
Karolina is a first-year trainee solicitor at RPC, currently sitting in the firm’s corporate department. She graduated from King’s College London with a double-degree in English law & German law, as part of which she obtained a masters in German & European law and legal practice from Humboldt University in Berlin. Prior to commencing her training contract, Karolina worked in academic research and teaching, as well as the legal tech sphere.
Hatti Briggs
Panellist, trainee, Mills & Reeve
Hatti began her training contract in 2020 and is currently sitting in regulatory, public and commercial disputes. She has also completed seats in family, private client and employment. Hatti came to the law after completing an undergraduate degree in linguistics at the University of York and undertook a master’s conversion into law with BPP and then obtained her LPC with the University of Law. Hatti has also previously worked in the energy sector and draws on her experiences with different disciplines in her day to day work as a trainee at Mills & Reeve.
Alexandra Gower
Panellist, partner, Osborne Clarke LLP
Alexandra is a partner at Osborne Clarke. She specialises in non-contentious construction and engineering contract advice, working predominantly for developers, employers, funders and contractors across a range of development projects. Alexandra specialises in projects in the real estate and infrastructure sector with particular experience of residential and large mixed use regeneration schemes. Alexandra advises clients across the full range of residential development sub-sectors including build to sell, build to rent, later living developments and affordable housing. As the training principal for Osborne Clarke she helps shape our training programme and in doing so works closely with our HR and people development teams to ensure we offer a first class training experience for our trainees and ensuring they are fully supported during their training contract.
Clara Howard
Workshop leader, senior business development manager, TLT LLP
Clara is a senior business development manager and part of the multi-disciplinary FutureLaw team, working on the design, development and delivery of new solutions for our clients. Clara is a non-practising senior lawyer, with over 15 years’ experience in professional services from both a fee earning, knowledge management and business development perspective.
Daniel Williams
Workshop leader, trainee solicitor, RPC
Daniel is a first-year trainee solicitor at RPC who is currently sitting in the commercial and banking litigation team having joined the firm in September 2021. Daniel studied history at the University of Southampton before completing the GDL and MSc law, business and management at the University of Law.
Callum Scott
Panellist, supervising caseworker, Nottingham Law School
Callum is an enabling innovation project legal officer. His work is focused on providing commercial law/IP advice to SMEs, start-up businesses, and voluntary sector organisations within the D2N2 area. Callum undertakes a variety of work in the Nottingham Law School Legal Advice Centre.
Liam Edwards
Panellist, first year trainee, Burges Salmon LLP
Liam is currently in his first seat at Burges Salmon, sitting in the disputes department, and spending most of his time working with the real estate disputes sub-team. He studied law at the University of Oxford and then spent a year working as the student liaison officer of the sixth form college he attended prior to university, which mostly involved reading and editing forests’ worth of draft personal statements. In his spare time, he enjoys watching and playing football (Arsenal fan), watching Formula 1, reading, and listening to music.
Lauren Paterson
Workshop leader, trainee solicitor, RPC
Lauren is currently in her first seat of her training contract at RPC. She is sitting in the commercial and banking litigation team within the commercial disputes department of the firm. Lauren studied law at the University of Leeds before completing the LPC with a master’s in law, business and management. Prior to commencing her training contract, Lauren spent a year working as an in-house paralegal for a UK housebuilder. Her role was mainly project based, assisting with projects focussed on obtaining key commercial objectives for the company, as well as providing general paralegal support to the business.
Tiran Gunawardena
Workshop leader, principal associate, Mills & Reeve
Tiran is a specialist in sports law and international sports arbitration. He advises players’ associations, clubs, athletes and agents on contractual, regulatory and disciplinary matters before forums including The FA, UEFA, FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Tiran is also an arbitrator for the UCI, and a member of the Formula One Cost Cap Adjudication Panel.
Abigail Hadfield
Keynote speaker and panellist, partner, TLT LLP
Abigail is a specialist in corporate restructuring and insolvency and also has extensive experience in loan portfolio sales and acquisitions, particularly regulated loan products.
Abigail advises a wide range of secured lenders on all aspects of security and enforcement strategy and acts for insolvency officeholders in relation to their appointments and the disposal of assets. She also advises lenders and other financial institutions, and their loan servicers, in relation to the acquisition and disposal of mortgage books.
Audrey Ferrie
Panellist, legal director, Pinsent Masons LLP
Audrey graduated from Glasgow University in 1977 and qualified as a solicitor in 1979 into the litigation team of Moncrieff Warren Paterson and has remained with the firm in its various guises since then. She has experience of a wide range of civil and criminal litigation but her area of specialism is licensing, both alcohol & gambling. Many of her clients are household names – PizzaExpress, Wagamama & Yo! Sushi. She is married to another Glasgow-based lawyer and has 2 grown up sons. She is a retired skier and now enjoys yoga & Pilates & eating out with her friends.
Dea Gagoshidze
Workshop leader, trainee solicitor, RPC
Dea is a third seat trainee at RPC, sitting in the commercial, technology and outsourcing team. Her previous seats were in the professional and financial risks and commercial disputes teams. Dea studied international relations and politics at Cardiff University. She completed the GDL and LPC directly after finishing her degree in 2018 and commenced her training contract in September 2020.
Dan Wyatt
Workshop leader, partner, RPC
Dan Wyatt is an experienced commercial litigator with particular expertise in complex, high value civil and cyber fraud, financial services, and shareholder/partnership disputes. His work is usually multi-jurisdictional, and frequently involves Russia and Former Soviet Union countries.
Patrick Taylor
Panellist, partner & training principal, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
Patrick Taylor is a partner in the international dispute resolution group. His practice focuses on commercial and investment treaty arbitration, with particular experience in the upstream oil & gas, energy and telecommunications sectors, and tax-related disputes. Qualified in England & Wales and Ireland as a solicitor-advocate, Mr. Taylor has advised and represented clients in disputes throughout the world, most frequently in Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS, and, increasingly, in Latin America. Mr. Taylor has acted in arbitrations under the rules of ICSID, the LCIA, the ICC, UNCITRAL, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, the Nigerian Arbitration and Conciliation Act and the Milan Chamber of Arbitration.
Ross McDowall
Workshop leader, legal director, Pinsent Masons LLP
Ross is dual qualified in Scotland and England & Wales and advises across the UK in relation to all aspects of environmental, planning and property law.
Eluned Watson
Workshop leader, senior associate, Pinsent Masons LLP
Eluned is a senior associate with over 10 years’ experience specialising in all aspects of international, UK and EU environmental law. Globally, she advises across a wide range of sectors including energy; development and regeneration; water and waste and regulatory. Eluned holds an MSc. in environmental management from the University of Oxford and before qualifying as solicitor, worked as a scientific officer in the Radiological Safety Unit at the Food Standards Agency.