JMW continues to expand London office with six new partner hires

JMW Solicitors LLP continues its expansion with six partner hires for the London office. This brings the number of new partner hires in the London office to 18 since January 2020.

Greg Thwaites, formerly a partner and consultant at Dentons UK and Middle East LLP, joins the Commercial Real Estate team. Recognised as showing ‘tenacity, responsiveness and reliability’ by The Legal 500, Greg offers real estate expertise in finance and investments, M&A, restructuring and insolvency, development and landlord and tenant disputes. He acts for institutional clients, banks, large owner occupiers and capital providers across a variety of sectors including healthcare, retail (including motor), industrial, office, leisure and ultra-high value residential.

John Andrews specialises in mergers and acquisitions work for a variety of SME and larger clients, with particular specialisms in the property, logistics, facilities management and healthcare sectors. He was formerly the Head of Corporate at Morrisons Solicitors LLP, a major regional full services law firm.

Sophie Maryan joins as the Co-Head of the London Real Estate Residential team. She has more than ten years’ experience in a broad range of work including leasehold and freehold property acquisitions and disposals for property companies and end users. Sophie joins from Philip Ross Solicitors.

Petar Orlic’s practice focuses on the acquisition and disposal of commercial properties, real estate finance, development and landlord and tenant matters relating to portfolio management. He also advises on high-end residential acquisitions. Flagged as a ‘rising star’ earlier in his career, his clients include institutional investors, developers, co-living companies, foreign and domestic banks and a wide variety of other commercial real estate investors. Petar recently acted for the Collective in relation to the re-finance of its ‘Domes Apartments’ portfolio in Acton. 

In addition to standard real estate, Petar has experience in representing offshore investors and lenders in relation to cross-border energy transactions, joint ventures, financings, projects and corporate matters, specifically in relation to Central and Eastern Europe and, in particular, the Western Balkans. He speaks English, Serbian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin and he is currently the Deputy Chairman of the British Serbian Chamber of Commerce.  Petar joins from Watson Farley & Williams and brings senior associate, Josip Stajfer, with him.

David Thompson handles all areas of family law, with particular emphasis on complex financial and international issues. He has significant experience in jurisdictional cross-border financial issues and has acted in several difficult leave-to-remove children cases. David is also an enthusiastic and experienced mediator, handling a large number of difficult children and financial issues. He is the Chair of the London Region of Resolution, the national organisation for Family Lawyers, and is an active member of the Cambridge Regional committee. David joins from BDB Pitmans.

Daniel Martin specialises in financial and business crime, regulatory investigations and serious general crime. He has a wealth of experience in cases involving serious and organised crime, often with an international element. Daniel specialises in corporate and financial crime, working on cases involving high value and complex fraud. He also advises corporates on internal investigations and bringing private prosecutions in the criminal courts and has significant experience in defending asset recovery and confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).  Daniel advises corporate clients on regulatory compliance with UK financial crime law, including the AML/CTF regime, and is a specialist Solicitor-Advocate, regularly representing clients at preliminary hearings, bail applications, trials, appeals and committals in the Crown Court. He is ranked as a ‘Next Generation Partner’ in the Legal 500. Daniel joins from Blaser Mills Law.

Greg, John, Sophie, Petar, David and Daniel join eight recent hires in the London office; Andrew Li and two of his colleagues from Laytons LLP in the Real Estate team, and five hires in the Family team. Patrick Hart, joined as a partner with three of his colleagues from Royds Withy King and Tracey Rodford, partner, joined from Camilla Baldwin. Petar brings the Real Estate team in London to 14 and the David brings the Family team to ten.

Joy Kingsley, Senior Partner, said: “Despite the challenging environment, we are continuing to see significant growth in our London office. Our continued investment in the London market is being rewarded by exceptional growth and these latest hires bring the team in London to 44 partners. We will continue to maintain a flexible approach and fully expect this growth to continue throughout 2021 and beyond.”

JMW Solicitors LLP has been ranked number 33 in 2020 The Sunday Times 'Best Companies' to work for listing. The listing is compiled from a survey of company staff across all sectors. JMW was the second law firm within the top 100.

JMW Solicitors is ranked 74 in The Lawyer’s “UK 200: The Top 100” for 2020, moving up nine places. The listing confirms that JMW posted the largest organic growth in the 51-100 tier, increasing revenues from £38.3m in 2019 to £47.6m this year. The London office contributed £5.1m to that growth.