This week's Yorkshire appointments

Alison Lewis, Birdsall & Snowball

Law firm Birdsall & Snowball has appointed Alison Lewis to head up its new family law department.

Family solicitor Alison, who has recently moved from Leicester to Scarborough, has worked in family law for the past 15 years and is a member of Resolution, the association of family justice solicitors.

Alison deals with all aspects of family law, including divorce, civil partnership dissolution, cohabitation, separation agreements, financial issues on separation and injunctions. She also deals with disputes regarding arrangements for children and acts for grandparents as well as parents in private children law proceedings.

Alison commented: “This is a tremendous opportunity for me. Birdsall & Snowball have an excellent reputation as a first-class law firm across Yorkshire and I am honoured to have been asked to lead their new family law department.

“There is no doubt that the past 12 months have been challenging for everyone and have inevitably placed strains on family relationships. Sadly, as we emerge from lockdown, there will be many families in this area who are struggling with emotional and marital issues.

“I completely understand that trying to resolve family issues can be very emotive and worrying, but my overriding aim is to provide friendly and affordable expert advice and assistance to all my clients at what is often a very difficult time.”

Evette Abbey, partner at Birdsall & Snowball, added: “We are delighted to welcome Alison to our team.

“She has a wealth of experience in family law and we are very pleased to be able to add a family law service to those legal services we already provide at our Scarborough Office.”

Santino Stifanelli, Rebecca Simpson, Francesca See and Leah Pattison, Clarion

Law firm Clarion has made four appointments to its team.

With two years’ experience, Santino Stifanelli is the latest recruit in the Leeds law firm’s corporate practice, advising on a range of corporate transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, business sales, joint ventures and corporate restructuring.

Santino also advises directors and shareholders with their legal requirements, including directors’ duties or shareholder agreements. Having worked in-house, he has experience in corporate and commercial matters.

Rebecca Simpson has joined Clarion’s employment practice. Over the last two years, she has gained knowledge in dealing with the end of employment relationships and represented clients on a range of contentious matters, including employment tribunals proceedings and judicial mediation, acting in particular, on behalf of trade unions and their members.

Rebecca’s areas of specialism range from advising on employment documents and policies, to advising on employee relations issues, business immigration and the people aspects of corporate transactions.

The banking and finance team at Clarion has added Francesca See to its ranks as an associate solicitor. Francesca has experience of providing advice on a range of funding transactions including development, corporate and real estate finance matters.

Having previously worked as a paralegal at a national firm, Francesca has gained six years’ legal experience and will help support the teams corporate and leveraged finance offering.

Finally, Leah Pattison joins the commercial team. Over the last four years, she has worked for a firm in Newcastle upon Tyne. She has experience of reviewing and drafting a range of commercial contracts as well as preparing various GDPR compliant policies for companies and providing corporate support work.

Leah works across various sectors including the technology, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and retail sectors.

Roger Hutton, joint managing partner of Clarion, commented: “Our team is continuing to expand as we bring on board new talent to ensure we are able to support the growth of existing clients as well as servicing new clients.

“We are fortunate to be located in such a vibrant legal community here in Yorkshire and to benefit from the very positive reputation Clarion has established as a great place to work and as a firm that really looks after its clients.”

Richard Lawrence, Rise at Seven

Search-first creative agency Rise at Seven, has appointed Richard Lawrence as technical director.

Formerly the Head of SEO at Kin + Carta Connect, Richard joins the team with experience in SEO, data science, digital strategy and content marketing, having worked on brands including Amazon, Lexus, Unilever and JD Sports.

Richard’s role at Rise at Seven will see him lead the growth of the technical SEO offering and working to support the data team.

Richard commented: “Rise at Seven is disrupting the search industry, cutting through the noise with clear focus on what makes leading brands tick.

“This clarity has stimulated major growth over the last 20 months, with spectacular client results to back it up. The future looks very bright and I’m excited to join the team at this stage of the journey!”

Stephen Kenwright, chief operating officer at Rise at Seven, added: “There weren’t many people in the world that we felt could do the job we’ve brought Richard in for, his background in SEO and data science makes him the perfect leader for our brand of experimentally-driven technical SEO.

“I’m excited to see how he can scale his test and learn approach to be executed by the biggest and brightest team of creatives in the search industry.”

Christopher Hart, KwizzBit

Interactive quiz software company KwizzBit has promoted Christopher Hart to sales director.

Christopher will have the primary responsibility for driving revenue and collaborating with partners to deliver real time events and promotions via KwizzBit’s unique interactive software solution.

As part of his new position Christopher will be taking on the role of ‘head of partnerships’, creating partnerships with companies and brands looking to engage with their teams, fans and customers.

Speaking on his promotion, Christopher said: “The past four years, being part of the foundations of a startup company have been a thrilling rollercoaster and I look forward to thriving in my new role and establishing more partnerships as we look to scale the business”.

KwizzBit’s CEO & founder, Mark Walsh, added: “We have worked hard to build a great team with strong values and Chris has helped us achieve this with his passion to drive the business forward.

“Chris has been with us since the start of our journey in 2017 and he has grown with the company during which time he has shown great leadership and innovation and we are all excited to see him thrive in his new role.”