Eight Female Lawyers Among Those Promoted Along With Three Former Trainees

National law firm Irwin Mitchell has announced 11 new Partners across the country in this year's promotion round at the Group.

The new Partners work within various areas of law helping both businesses and individuals including Family, Employment, Personal Injury, Debt Recovery, Tax, Trusts & Estates (TTE) and Public Law.  

Eight of the 11 are female and three trained and qualified at the firm. 

David Johnston-Keay is an occupational disease specialist who began his career at Irwin Mitchell nearly 20 years ago. After qualifying with the firm in 2007, he now leads the workplace illness and disease team in Sheffield.

Another of the new Partners, Emma McCann who works in the TTE team, joined Irwin Mitchell as a paralegal in 1999. She qualified in that team in 2005, was promoted to Associate the same year, and Senior Associate in 2017. 

Cheryl Palmer-Hughes, who works in Irwin Mitchell’s International Personal Injury department, also trained and qualified with the firm. Based in the Manchester office, Cheryl acts for clients who have been injured in incidents abroad.

The other new Partners are Adele Lomas (Ascent), Andrea Jones (TTE), Elaine Huttley (Employment), Jenna Lucas (Family Law), Katie Strong (Court of Protection & Public Law), Mark Hands (Family Law), Nicola Maier (Asbestos-Related Disease) and Richard Kayser (Serious Injury). 

The promotions follow the 84 Associate and Senior Associate promotions made in January this year.

Expert Opinion

"Once again I am immensely proud to announce our new partner promotions. When you take into account our new Associates and Senior Associates, this year we’ve promoted almost 100 people across our Group, which is another clear sign of the continued emphasis we place on investing and developing our people.”

He added: “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has made getting professional and timely advice more important than ever for people and businesses. Our advisory services are seeing that demand from clients and it’s important we continue to build our group to support that.”
Andrew Tucker - CEO

Irwin Mitchell has recently been recognised in The Times' list of the best 200 law firms in England and Wales. The firm is also ranked as the number one Personal Injury firm by both Chambers and Legal 500 independent guides to law.

The firm won The Signature Awards' Excellence in Diversity Award for the third time and within its fast growing business division, Irwin Mitchell was recently named Employment Law Firm of the Year by Personnel Today.

The appointments take effect from 1 May and are subject to SRA approval.