Travers Smith promotes seven lawyers to its partnership

Alice Childs – Dispute Resolution

Alice has a breadth of commercial litigation experience acting for a variety of both domestic and international clients, including individuals, corporates, financial institutions, banks and private equity houses. Her matters range from disputes arising out of commercial contracts, shareholder disagreements and breach of warranty claims in connection with corporate transactions, all the way to "parent company liability" claims concerning alleged human rights abuses and high-profile civil fraud claims. She recently represented Hewlett Packard in one of The Lawyer's top cases of 2019 - dubbed the “tech trial of the century” - in relation to accounting fraud claims arising out of the US$11 billion acquisition of Autonomy Corporation plc in 2011. Alice also has significant experience in internal and regulatory investigations involving both the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Conduct Authority. During her career at Travers Smith, Alice has spent time seconded to the High Court of England & Wales as a judicial assistant and to an investment bank as part of its in-house litigation team.

Ed Ford – Funds

Ed advises leading private investment fund sponsors on the structuring and establishment of investment funds investing across all major alternative strategies and on the related carried interest and co-investment structuring.  Ed is also an expert in structuring secondary market solutions and has extensive experience in advising on complex transactions in the private secondary market, including GP-led secondaries, fund recapitalisations, LP portfolio sales, preferred equity financings and other structured secondary transactions. In the last 12 months, Ed has advised GPs on 11 GP-led secondary deals with £bns of transaction value (including on transactions backed by Pantheon, LGT Private Equity, Glendower Capital, Idinvest Partners and HarbourVest Partners). Additionally, Ed advises a range of institutional investors on their deployment programmes (including primary fund investments, co-investments and secondary investments).

Tom Hartwright – Private Equity & Financial Sponsors

Tom specialises in UK and international private equity transactions and M&A. Acting for financial sponsors, founders, management teams, and corporate clients, he advises on a range of multi-jurisdictional transactions including exits, acquisitions, minority investments, restructurings and general corporate matters. Tom is a member of both Travers Smith's Technology Sector Group and its Legal Technology Working Group, which brings together lawyers and technologists to design more agile and efficient ways to deliver legal services. Selected recent experience includes advising TA Associates on the sale of ITRS Group, Equistone Partners Europe on the sale of Winterbotham Darby, Livingbridge on the sale of Exclaimer and IK Investment Partners on their acquisition of Forthglade Foods.

Rachel Kitchman – Dispute Resolution

Rachel has a broad practice, advising on high-value and complex disputes for clients across a range of sectors. Rachel has experience in commercial litigation, international arbitration and sensitive internal and regulatory investigations, as well as mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Most recently, Rachel has been working on contractual disputes, claims arising out of M&A transactions, competition follow-on damages cases and parent company liability claims. Her work is often multi-jurisdictional in nature and she works closely with international lawyers.

Natalie Lewis – Financial Services & Markets

Natalie is a leading member of the firm’s cross-disciplinary Fintech, Market Infrastructure and Payments (FMIP) Group. She has considerable experience of working with financial market infrastructure (FMI), payment institutions and other fintech clients. Natalie regularly advises the main UK and international payment and settlement systems operating at the heart of the financial markets on the broad spectrum of UK, EU, and other international laws and regulations affecting them. Natalie heads many of the firm's highly complex fintech projects, with recent examples including the new Request to Pay Service (a fintech solution launched by Pay.UK Limited) and the bespoke, systemically important post-Brexit market solution for euro settlement (launched by Euroclear UK & Ireland Limited). Natalie plays an instrumental role in the success of Travers Smith's retail and wholesale fintech, payments and FMI regulatory law offering, particularly in the fast-moving and highly innovative clearing, settlement and payments space and in relation to the development of new platforms using DLT and cloud technologies.

Jamie Parish – Finance

Jamie is a finance lawyer specialising in real estate finance, fund finance and speciality finance. He advises on all aspects of real estate debt financing, including investment and development finance at all levels of the capital structure across a range of asset classes, with a particular expertise in real estate-backed operating businesses. In the fund finance space, Jamie advises on the full spectrum of products in particular subscription facilities, NAV/hybrid facilities, GP support/co-invest facilities, and equity commitment-backed facilities. Jamie also advises on complex highly structured transactions in the speciality finance space, including traditional borrowing base facilities, warehouse structures for SPV assetcos and forward flow agreements. Recent transactions include advising AshbyCapital on debt facilities secured over significant retail parks; RBS International on subscription and NAV facilities to multiple private equity and private equity real estate funds; and Paragon Bank PLC and Silicon Valley Bank on an innovative debt facility to fund the origination of CBILS loans.

Barney Stannard – Dispute Resolution

Barney acts across a broad spectrum of complex commercial litigation. He has represented clients in relation to high profile competition damage claims, cross-border tort litigation, corporate fraud and complex financial services claims in the High Court, and he has acted in an advisory capacity on a wide range of commercial and corporate matters. He has also advised clients in relation to complex multi-jurisdictional litigation. His experience covers a range of sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, pensions and private equity, for clients based in the UK, Europe, Africa and East Asia. 

Travers Smith's Managing Partner, David Patient, commented: "Congratulations to each of our new partners. They are all exceptionally talented lawyers and, whilst we can't celebrate their promotions in quite the same style or way we would normally just at the moment, we hopefully will be able to soon, and I know they will all be significant contributors to the firm's future success."

Travers Smith's Senior Partner, Kathleen Russ, commented: "The election of our new partners illustrates the strength of our business in the alternative asset management sector, in mergers and acquisitions and in disputes and investigations, as well as our continued investment in the innovative FMIP field.  Their promotion is evidence of our confidence in the continued growth of those areas of work and in the quality of these individuals to support the firm in these ambitions.  I am delighted that they will be joining our partnership."