Manchester law firm add ten partners

gunnercooke has continued its fast paced expansion with the appointment of ten new partners.

The new appointments – Christopher Jones, Sunil Abeyewickreme, Simon Horsfield, Sara Sawicki, Jo Tindall, Carl Atkinson, Geneva Gatrell, Ruth McCarthy, Chris Powell and Graham Stott – bring gunnercooke’s overall partner count to 42. This time last year the firm had 17 partners.

Christopher Jones joins as a restructuring partner, having previously been a partner at Irwin Mitchell. He established Irwin Mitchell’s Manchester corporate restructuring and finance team and has extensive experience acting for clients ranging from large plcs, to SMEs and professional services firms.

Sunil Abeyewickreme joins as a healthcare partner. He is an experienced and highly respected healthcare lawyer and previously led the multi-national Dental Healthcare Team at DWF LLP.

Simon Horsfield joins gunnercooke from Pinsent Masons, where he was a partner and head of theManchester employment team. Simon, who is one of four new employment partners, has wide ranging employment experience, with a particular focus on the financial services and sports sectors.

Sara Sawicki also joins as an employment partner from Pinsent Masons in Manchester. She advises on all aspects of employment law, both contentious and non-contentious. Her client base includes a broad range of employer clients from blue chip companies to SMEs and across the full spectrum of sectors, including retail, financial institutions, public sector, support services, manufacturing and leisure.

Jo Tindall joins as an employment partner from Walker Morris. Her former firms include DLA Piper and DAC Beachcroft. Jo is an expert in both contentious and non-contentious employment work and has extensive experience in employment tribunal litigation and transactional matters. Jo has advised many commercial clients in a wide range of sectors, including manufacturing, retails and financial services.

Carl Atkinson joins as an employment partner. He has wide ranging experience both in private practice and in the manufacturing and FMCG sectors, most recently at 2 Sisters Food Group Limited and Northern Foods plc as Senior Employment lawyer.

With over ten years’ experience practicing pensions law at Clifford Chance, Towers & Hamlins and DLA Piper Ginevra Gatrell joins as a partner with extensive experience advising clients on pension issues including employers and pension scheme trustees, and also group companies in relation to reorganisations, corporate transactions and insolvency matters. Ginevra also has experience advising public and private sector bodies.

New property partner Ruth McCarthy has extensive expertise across all aspects of commercial property having previously headed the commercial property teams at Linder Myers and Taylors.

Chris Powell joins gunnercooke as a company commercial partner. With extensive experience advising on high-end contentious commercial work predominantly for domestic and international clients, Chris has particular expertise in Information Technology and previously led his own firm, Lawyers4IT.

Graham Stott joins as a private client partner. Graham built his own practice, Blackledge and Co for over 10 years, working closely with the clients of private banks and wealth managers on all aspects of contentious and non-contentious probate work, trust and estate planning and drafting wills.

Sarah Goulbourne, co-founder of gunnercooke said: “We are delighted to welcome so many high quality partners to the firm. When we launched the firm in 2010, we set out to challenge the way legal services are offered to the market.

“We have done this by continuously innovating and improving the quality of our legal services by focusing solely on our clients’ commercial needs. Our rapid growth and expansion is an endorsement of this approach and we will continue to expand and develop the business during the year ahead.”

The new partners – who will be based in Manchester – join gunnercooke at a busy time. The recently augmented the growth of its London office with the appointment of four new partners – corporate heavyweights Tim Drake, Matthew Searle and Alistair Crellin and leading tax expert Peter Davis.