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This year's North East Fastest 50 Awards were a great success and it was fantastic to see so many of you attend the ceremony.

Many of the Ward Hadaway team were in attendance at the awards and thoroughly enjoyed meeting you. They are available to continue any conversations you were having or to answer any of your queries. Below we have provided some mini profiles to help you put faces to names.

If you would like to connect with any other attendee from the awards, we would be more than happy to facilitate an introduction. Please email events@wardhadaway.com and we will be in touch.

Ward Hadaway attendees

  • Damien Charlton

    Damien is a highly experienced lawyer, who has been advising businesses on company and commercial matters for over 20 years. He is the Head of the Commercial Department and advises clients on a national basis.

    Contact Damien

  • Nick Gholkar

    Nick is the Executive Partner for our Newcastle Office and a partner in our Built Environment team.

    Nick advises on all aspects of Real Estate matters. Nick has extensive experience in acting on acquisitions, disposals, development, leasing and financing of Real Estate assets.

    Contact Nick

  • Imogen Holland

    Imogen is a Partner in the Corporate department at Ward Hadaway. She qualified in 2003 having trained at Ward Hadaway.

    She advises on banking, funding and corporate matters and has provided advice to both lenders and borrowers in a range of areas including acquisition finance, development and project finance. Imogen also advises on corporate matters including acquisitions and disposals and private equity transactions.

    Contact Imogen

  • Lesley Fairclough

    Lesley specialises in commercial property development work.

    Since qualifying as a solicitor in 1992, Lesley has worked in the Commercial Property Team at Ward Hadaway dealing with all aspects of commercial property work, but in particular development work (residential, commercial and mixed use schemes) acting for either landowners or developers.

    Contact Lesley

  • Lee Bramley

    Lee is the Executive Partner for our Teesside office and a partner specialising in insolvency and litigation.

    Lee has more than 20 years’ experience in commercial law and was Managing Partner of The Endeavour Partnership prior to the firm’s merger with Ward Hadaway.

    Contact Lee

  • Gillian Chinhengo

    Gillian is a Partner in our Employment Unit. Gillian is an experienced and trusted employment lawyer, working across a broad spectrum of employment law matters, including TUPE, large scale reorganization/redundancy, discrimination issues and unfair dismissal.

    Contact Gillian

  • James Butler

    James is an experienced Partner in our Corporate team and advises on the full spectrum of corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and investments as well as corporate restructuring.

    Recommended by the Legal 500, James acts for a vast range of clients across a wide variety of sectors, from offshore industry, manufacturers, and technology to education, healthcare, and professional services.

    Contact James

  • Richard Butts

    Richard has been at Ward Hadaway for over 20 years, the last 12 of which as a partner.

    He has extensive experience in advising on the full range of corporate transactions, but with a particular specialism of advising growing business on funding matters and advising fund managers on investment transactions, including advising on fund structures and associated documentation.

    Contact Richard

     

     

  • Jamie Gamble

    Jamie is a partner within the Employment Team and head of the Newcastle employment unit at Ward Hadaway, he has specialised in employment law since 2002.

    Contact Jamie

  • Louise Masters

    With almost two decades experience, Louise is a stalwart of the family law legal community, both regionally and nationally. Dealing with all aspects of family law, clients and contacts agree that Louise’s supportive but firm approach and stellar legal background sets her apart.

    Louise specialises in high value and complex financial remedy cases but also has a great deal of experience covering all areas of family law. She also delivers training to professionals on the cross over between family law and serious injury and to financial experts. Coupled with this Louise is engaged by Resolution to assess whether other lawyers should be accredited.

    Contact Louise

  • Matthew Cormack

    Matt is a Partner in the commercial team at Ward Hadaway, based in the Newcastle office, and acts for a wide range of clients from large multi-national corporate clients to early stage businesses.

    Contact Matthew

  • Robert Glassford

    Robert is a senior and experienced litigator having over 20 years of expertise handling a wide range of disputes for private, commercial, and public sector clients, and is recognised in Legal 500 as a leading individual.

    Robert acts for a range of Ward Hadaway’s national and international clients handling a wide variety of disputes. These include complex contractual disputes, insurance claims, professional negligence claims, company, shareholder and joint venture disputes, and intellectual property litigation.

    Contact Robert

  • Peter Hornsey

    Peter is the Joint National Head of Commercial Litigation, a recent two-time winner of the Legal 500 award for UK Dispute Resolution Firm of the Year (outside London).

    He has advised for over 25 years on a wide range of professional negligence, contractual and intellectual property disputes for individuals and businesses of all sizes. Peter’s expertise also includes shareholder and partnership disputes, director’s duties, disputes involving restrictive covenants in employment contracts, public sector fraud and defamation.

    Contact Peter

  • Martin McKinnell

    Martin is an experienced Partner specialising in corporate transactional work. He is part of our Corporate team based in Teesside.

    Martin’s corporate transactional practice involves him acting for corporate entities, sellers, buyers, banks, private equity firms, insolvency practitioners and investors across a range of sales, acquisitions, reorganisations, restructurings, distressed deals, inbound funding, equity buy-outs, management buy-outs, fund exits and financing arrangements.

    Contact Martin

  • Laura Wilson

    Laura is a Partner in the Employment team at Ward Hadaway, based in Teesside, and specialises in both employment and business immigration law.

    She predominantly advises companies and third sector organisations, offering pragmatic, commercial, and solution-focused advice. Laura works closely with clients across a range of sectors on day-to-day HR matters, including drafting employment contracts and directors’ service agreements, developing tailored workplace policies, and managing complex disciplinary, grievance, redundancy, and absence management procedures.

    Contact Laura

  • Steven Roper

    Steven is a Partner in the commercial team. His practice covers a wide range of business clients, from local businesses to household-name multinationals, advising on commercial contracts and corporate governance issues. Steven also leads Ward Hadaway’s Transport and Infrastructure team.

    Contact Steven

  • Alexander Rose

    Alexander is a Partner in the Commercial and Competition team at Ward Hadaway with a national reputation for his expertise in public funding, including Subsidy Control law. His advice is described as “streets ahead of the competition, in terms of both quality and value” in the Chambers Directory.

    At Ward Hadaway, Alexander is a trusted adviser to Combined Authorities, Councils and other public authorities administering funding programmes as well as to blue chip companies looking to secure grants, loans and guarantees from the public sector.

    Contact Alexander

  • Phil Tompkins

    Phil Tompkins is a partner in the Commercial department at Ward Hadaway.

    Phil has extensive experience in the public and private sectors and advises clients on commercial contracts, data protection issues and IT/technology contracts.

    Contact Phil

  • Nik Tunley

    Nik has over 20 years of legal experience specialising in corporate mergers and acquisitions, providing bespoke advice to clients from local SMEs to large multinational organisations and is the Head of the Corporate team.

    Nik specialises principally in mergers and acquisitions, and private company transactional matters. His M&A work is focused on advising UK-based SME companies and providing strategic support to the aspirational goals of the owners of those businesses when seeking to maximise value.

    Contact Nik

  • Robert Eldon

    Robert is a senior and experienced litigator having over 20 years of expertise handling a wide range of disputes for private, commercial, and public sector clients, and is recognised in Legal 500 as a leading individual

    Contact Robert

  • Russell Ward

    Russell is an experienced commercial litigator of over 15 years’ experience, and who splits his time between Ward Hadaway’s Newcastle and Leeds offices.

    Having trained with the firm and qualified into the commercial litigation team in September 2006, Russell has risen through the ranks and joined the Partnership in May 2015.

    Contact Russell 

  • Carlyn Weale

    Carlyn is an experienced commercial litigator and an astute tactician, described by the Legal 500 as a “superb litigator.” Carlyn is best known for her work in shareholder and board disputes, injunctions and confidential information disputes. She has significant experience in training and developing junior lawyers.

    Carlyn joined Ward Hadaway in June 2024, as a partner in Commercial Litigation. She brought with her almost 20 years of experience of working in Manchester, having represented hundreds of local, national and international clients.

    Contact Carlyn

  • Kevin Weston

    Kevin is Head of the Real Estate Team.

    He has over 30 years’ experience working within the Yorkshire region. During that time he has developed a strong client base and is a key adviser to a number of clients. He acts for a number of private developers and charity clients.

    Contact Kevin

  • Neil Williamson

    Neil is a partner in the Construction and Engineering unit at Ward Hadaway.

    Neil advises both private and public sector clients on negotiating construction documentation including building contracts, consultant appointments, collateral warranties, novations, bonds and guarantees. He also works with colleagues across the firm to assist in drafting and negotiating construction-related provisions in ancillary documents, such as development agreements, agreements for lease and funding agreements.

    Contact Neil

  • Tom Wills

    Tom is Head of Agriculture, Rural Business and Estates and a Partner in the Real Estate team.

    With almost two decades of experience in the sector, Tom specialises in a wide range of Rural and Agricultural issues and is a Fellow of the Agricultural Law Association. He has particularly detailed knowledge of Agricultural Holdings, Rural Business, Commercial Real Estate, Renewables Projects and Mines and Minerals.

    Contact Tom

  • Martin Woodford

    Martin is a senior and experienced litigator listed as a Leading Individual in the Legal 500 and comes recommended in Chambers & Partners. He has a wide practice with a particular interest in high value and complex disputes.

    Contact Martin

  • Alex Wright

    Alex is a partner in our Built Environment team.

    In the private sector, Alex regularly acts for both landlords and tenants in their negotiation of commercial property leases, together with all associated leasehold documentation.

    In addition to landlord and tenant work, Alex has successfully advised clients on commercial property sales and acquisitions of industrial, retail, office and development property as well as in relation to investment portfolios. He has particular expertise in the industrial and office sectors.

    Contact Alex