This is the largest Senior Counsel promotion round to date and follows the record promotion of 11 lawyers to the Travers Smith partnership.

All appointments are effective from 1 July 2022. The new Senior Counsel and their principal areas are:

Aisling Arthur – Corporate M&A and ECM

Aisling works within the dedicated Listed Company Advisory Team, whose primary focus is advising listed companies on day-to-day corporate and other matters. In addition to general corporate advisory work, Aisling advises on a range of compliance and risk management issues, including corporate governance, directors' duties, board composition and succession planning, market abuse, annual general meetings and shareholder activism.

Andrew Benson – Funds

Andrew's primary practice is assisting institutional investors, including occupational pension schemes, fund-of-funds investors, family offices and financial institutions, on their investment programmes across a broad range of sectors and fund types, including private equity, real estate, debt, infrastructure, venture capital and open-ended funds. Andrew's practice also includes the establishment, structuring, marketing, and fundraising of the full spectrum of closed-ended alternative investment funds, and he assists managers with their carry and co-investment incentive arrangements and the day-to-day operation of their funds.

Michele Cheng – Dispute Resolution

Michele is experienced in complex litigation and contentious regulatory matters, as well as investigations and inquiries involving a wide range of state and sector-specific regulators. Having spent four years as senior litigation counsel at HSBC, Michele has deep understanding of clients' commercial and practical priorities in these areas.

Michael Cuthbertson – Technology & Commercial Transactions 

Michael's core area of expertise is the structuring and negotiation of high-value, business-critical commercial agreements for clients across a range of sectors. Within this broad practice, Michael has developed a particular focus on energy and infrastructure, advising owners and operators of traditional and renewable generation, transportation, metering and storage assets.

Jessica Kolhorn – Private Equity & Financial Sponsors

Jess' practice focuses on UK and international private equity and M&A. She advises institutional sponsors, portfolio companies and management teams on a variety of transactions including acquisitions, exits, minority investments, restructurings, along with general corporate matters.

Jess is part of Travers Smith's International Committee, focusing on the firm's overseas network with whom the firm works closely on various multi-jurisdictional transactions.  

Ben Lowen – Corporate M&A and ECM

Ben specialises in corporate M&A. He joined the firm in 2014 and advises clients on public and private acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and provides general corporate advice.

Catherine O'Driscoll – Real Estate

Catherine specialises in commercial real estate and has experience across a range of sectors from offices and BTR to healthcare and alternative energy. She advises on all aspects of commercial real estate investments including disposals and acquisitions (at portfolio or asset level and including corporate wrappers), debt financing, development, as well high value landlord and tenant matters. Her particular focus is on real estate M&A, where she acts for a range of clients including private equity firms and listed and private companies.

Michael Ross – Technology & Commercial Transactions 

Michael's practice focuses on commercial contracts (including outsourcing, supply, distribution, agency and franchising arrangements) and strategic alliances (including joint ventures and collaboration agreements). He has experience across a broad range of sectors, including retail, media, logistics, technology, professional services, pension administration, hotels, brewing, energy and infrastructure. He also regularly advises in support of M&A transactions (including due diligence, transaction documents, transitional services arrangements and complex carve-out/separation processes).

Laura Smith – Finance

Laura's practice has a strong focus on real estate finance and also covers fund finance, general corporate lending and speciality finance. In the real estate finance space Laura acts for financial institutions, private equity sponsors and corporates and advises on all aspects of real estate debt financing including investment finance, development finance, refinancings and restructurings.  Laura's real estate finance practice spans a range of asset classes including healthcare, retail, office, student accommodation, multi-unit residential, hotels and logistics.    

Leigh Stockey – Funds 

Leigh specialises in London-listed investment funds, with experience of IPOs on both the premium and specialist fund segments of the main market of the London stock exchange. She also has a broad range of wider corporate finance experience and is helping to develop the team’s expertise in wider distribution and wealth management structures. 

Chris Widdison – Pensions

Chris provides advice on a broad spectrum of pension matters to trustees, corporate sponsors, and other stakeholders, with a primary focus on deploying his strong technical ability to provide clear, actionable, and commercial guidance. Chris has experience advising on a wide range of matters, including buy-ins, buy-outs and other innovative de-risking transactions, valuation exercises, large-scale benefit change exercises and liability management exercises, closures to accrual, and transfers of scheme assets to master trust arrangements. He also advises on pensions tax matters (and has helped author industry-wide guidance in this area), asset-backed funding arrangements, automatic enrolment obligations, and complex member disputes.

Managing Partner, Edmund Reed, said:

"Congratulations to all of our new Senior Counsel on this significant achievement in their careers. This bumper round follows our largest cohort of partner promotions to date and reflects the confidence we have in our business as we continue to grow and invest in our firm and core areas of focus: International alternative asset management, cross border mergers and acquisitions and global disputes and investigations."