Capital recognised as leading Welsh law firm by legal directories

The legal directories – The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners – were published last week, with Capital receiving top accolades. We received high rankings in both directories, our Corporate & Commercial team has been recognised as being among the best ‘legal brains’ of South Wales, and several of our colleagues have been listed as ‘ones to watch’.

As Chris Nott, our Senior Partner, writes in The Legal 500’s supplement, it’s an exciting and challenging time for lawyers in Wales.

There’s a lot of commercial activity in the strengthening Welsh and UK economy, with many larger firms reporting record results, while slashed state funding has created turmoil amongst the law-firms who serve the public. The legal sector is ripe for the adoption of new technologies, but will that boost the sector or take away lawyers’ jobs? Then there’s Brexit. This could become the gift that keeps on giving, as clients need lawyers’ help to grapple with the effects and the new laws that will implement it. Or it could cause the wider economy to contract and put our clients off doing deals. There’s also the question of LegalTech – and whether it’ll replace lawyers, or support and supplement them.

So, in this challenging climate, we’re pleased to have received top results.

Rankings

The Legal 500

We achieved:

• 5 Top tier spots – Corporate and Commercial – Cardiff and South Wales, IP, Commercial Litigation, Media & Entertainment and Sport
• 8 Tier 2 spots – Commercial Property – Cardiff, Debt Recovery, Employment – Cardiff, Immigration, IT & Telecoms, Insolvency and Corporate Recovery, Professional Negligence and Public Sector
• 2 Tier 3 spots – Banking and Finance and Construction
• And our Professional Negligence practice was ranked for the first time.

Four of our lawyers have been ranked as leading individuals: Duncan Macintosh, Wayne Beynon, Phil Jones, Andrew Brown.

And five of our team have been ranked as next generation lawyers: Stuart Pearson, Guto Llewelyn, Esyllt Green, Nicola Mead Batten, Rhiannon Holtham.

Chambers & Partners

We achieved:

• 1 Top tier spot– Litigation
• 7 Tier 2 spots– Corporate/M&A, Employment, Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment, Real Estate, Restructuring/Insolvency and Sport
• 2 Tier 3 spots– Administrative and Public Law and Banking and Finance.

12 ranked lawyers: Alys Carlton, Andrew Brown, Duncan Macintosh, Elin Pinnell (Eminent Practitioners), Leanne O’Brien, Nicola McNeely, Philip Jones, Richard Thomas, Stephen Meade, Tom Kelleher, Wayne Beynon.

Nicola Mead-Batten was ranked as Up and Coming, and Jennifer Pinder as Associates to Watch.

Capital’s Corporate & Commercial team

Writing about our Corporate team, Wales Online and The Western Mail said the following about Capital:

The proactive, pragmatic and entrepreneurial five-partner team at Capital Law provides a responsive and efficient service across the spectrum of corporate and commercial work, including advice on M&A transactions, joint venture structuring, and Alternative Investment Market placings.

The team is, however, perhaps best known for its private equity knowledge where it benefits from the expertise of the well-connected Duncan Macintosh, who is able to impart deep expertise in the field as a result of his knowledge gleaned from both private practice, as well as his previous work in-house for 3i. The very calm and productive Tom Kelleher also has an excellent track record and recently advised WestBridge Capital on the £29.4m secondary sale of Vista Retail to LDC. The attentive and tenacious Alys Carlton has a particular niche advising management teams; she recently advised the senior managers of Metamark on Primary Capital’s £62m management buyout of the business.

On the commercial front, the firm is developing a strong reputation in the cryptocurrency space, largely as a result of its work on behalf of core client Royal Mint subsidiary, RM Assets, on the development alongside CME Group of a blockchain-based gold trading platform. The committed and very dedicated Nicola McNeely is excellent on deals involving a strong technology component and led on the aforementioned deal. UK qualified German national Marlies Hoecherl is recommended for cross-border matters.

Ones to watch

Wales Online has listed three of our lawyers as ‘ones to watch’ this year.

Jennifer Pinder, Associate, Employment & Immigration

Jennifer works with both contentious and non-contentious employment law, representing clients at both the employment tribunal and employment appeal tribunal. She joined Capital at the end of 2017, and has more than 12 years of legal experience, with over 11 years specifically advising on HR and employment law issues.

A huge area of growth for the legal world will be in immigration law. currently, 6.6% of our workforce are EU nationals, and businesses need help to understand their obligations to non-British workers as the UK gears up to leave the EU. Jennifer leads our business immigration offering.

Catrin Mackie, Solicitor, Commercial Property

Catrin is involved in advising and representing developers in their acquisitions of various sites for residential development and advising on leasehold transactions from both a landlord and tenant perspective. She also assists in strategic relocation and redevelopment plans of higher and further educational institutions throughout Wales, and has experience in dealing with their status as a charity, where applicable.

Lucy Emanuel, Solicitor, Commercial Disputes

Lucy is responsible for contentious and non-contentious regulatory work, including investigations, claims involving breaches, and compliance. Lucy advises InsurTech start-ups working on the blockchain with regulatory requirements like GDPR, is the lead on a contractual dispute of significant public importance to the healthcare sector, and also the lead on a £66m professional negligence claim, funded through our litigation fund, Capital Dispute Finance.