Eight Bath lawyers have been named among the leading individuals in the South West’s legal sector.
The eight appear in the latest issue of Legal 500, the respected guide to legal services in the UK. They line up alongside ‘go-to’ lawyers from major legal firms in Bristol.
Stuart Brazington and Louise Hart from the Bath office of Royds Withy King both appear as leading lawyers for personal injury: claimant – giving the firm two of the three individuals in the category.
Stuart Brazington, pictured below, is a partner who specialises in brain and catastrophic injuries and leads Royds Withy King’s brain Injury team that helps clients who have been catastrophically injured and who have multi-million pound claims.
He has a special interest in paediatric brain injury work and chairs the South West support group of a well-known child brain injury charity as well as being an active member of the charity.
Louise Hart, pictured below, is a partner in Royds Withy King’s well-established personal injury team and has 20 years’ experience of dealing with all types of personal injury work.
She has been recognised by The Law Society Personal Injury Accreditation Scheme for 15 years and deals with claims resulting from accidents at work, road traffic accidents, occupiers’ liability accidents and accidents involving children.
She joined Royds Withy King in 1992 and qualified in 1994. She became a partner in the firm in 2000.
Jonathan Cheal, pictured below, of Bath firm Mogers Drewett is named as one of the region’s three leading lawyers for agriculture and estates work. He has more than 30 years’ experience in advising farmers and landowners on a broad range of legal and property issues and has a particular specialism in public and private rights of way and access to land – an area of practice rarely encountered in solicitors’ firms.
Tim Rutherford of Stone King’s Bath office is one of just two leading lawyers in the charities and not-for-profit sectors.
Tim is a partner in the firm’s charity & social enterprise team, specialising in advising on charity law, governance and related issues. He is also experienced in advising charities and organisations in relation to insolvency and risk management issues.
He has a national reputation for advising charities related to faith organisations – in particular Roman Catholic religious orders and dioceses) – and almshouses. He is also an ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Group accredited mediator.
His colleague at Stone King, John Clarke, is the region’s leading education lawyer, according to the Legal 500.
Before joining Stone King in 2012, John headed the education and employment teams at both Bristol-based Bevan Brittan and Rickerbys (now Harrison Clark Rickerbys) in Gloucestershire.
John has a national reputation for employment law, particularly in the independent school sector. His clients range from universities to modest prep schools and include both charitable and privately managed schools and colleges.
He advises on all aspects of governance, charity law, pupil and staff issues and employment disputes – including many successful appearances in the employment tribunal – as well as pensions, mergers and acquisitions and contractual disputes.
Edward Cooke at Royds Withy King is named as one of the top commercial property lawyers on the M4 Corridor.
Edward’s property experience has seen him act for organisations with extensive property portfolios, working with clients such as the Berkeley Group and Hanson on high-profile deals.
Edward also has wide experience in the charity sector, where he has advised the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), and the minerals and waste sector, having acted for Hanson Aggregates and Greenways Waste Management for many years.
Also at Royds Withy King, partner Paul Rumley is included as one of five leading individuals in clinical negligence: claimant work.
Paul, who qualified as a solicitor in 1998, helps to lead the firm’s clinical negligence team. His experience led to his extensive contribution to the recent legal aid reforms. Working with both Houses of Parliament, Paul received nationwide recognition for his efforts and success in retaining legal aid for some severely disabled children.
His particular expertise is in cases ranging from birth injury to cutting-edge medical cases including genetic brain injury.
Another Royds Withy King partner appears in the list as a leader for contentious trusts and probate work.
Amanda Noyce heads the firm’s specialist inheritance and trust disputes team and has more than 20 years’ experience in litigation.
She has practiced in both the non-contentious and contentious areas of inheritance, probate and trusts but now specialises exclusively in contentious work.
