After an outstanding year of achievement, Swinburne Maddison, Durham’s leading law firm, has made seven new appointments to its growing team, ending the year on a high and ahead of target.
The appointments follow hard on the heels of its impressive performance in the latest Legal 500 rankings released in October, where Swinburne Maddison was recognised in nine distinct practice areas covering the full breadth of disciplines across the firm, with four Top Tier rankings.
Reflecting continued demand for its services, Swinburne Maddison’s corporate team has welcomed four new members.
Rebecca Logue joins as associate solicitor from another regional law firm. Reporting to partner and head of corporate and commercial, Martyn Tennant, Rebecca’s experience will see her acting as project lead and providing senior support on M&A projects.
Also reporting to Martyn Tennant is Carole Gwynn who joins the firm in a newly created role as legal director. She brings extensive commercial contracts experience working in the higher education sector as a solicitor and in-house as legal counsel in the life sciences industry. She has also worked on various contractual agreements within the manufacturing, collaborative R&D, innovation and intellectual property spheres.
Meanwhile, Alex Siddle, who joined Swinburne Maddison in October 2021 as a paralegal in the dispute resolution team, has been promoted from a trainee to a solicitor within the corporate team, having qualified on 1st October while Imogen Bosanko, already ahead of the curve with some experience as a paralegal, is just starting out on her legal career with her first seat in corporate as a trainee solicitor.
These new appointments bring the total headcount in the corporate team to 12 fee earners and two support staff.
The commercial property team also welcomes two new faces. Zoe Limon, a solicitor, who previously worked in house at the Malhotra Group, qualified in July 2024. She will report to commercial property partner, Victoria Walton, in respect of leases, sales and purchasing matters for developers, business owners and landowners.
Additionally, Zoe will add depth to the team’s relationship within the financial sector, following Swinburne Maddison’s debut ranking in Legal 500’s Banking and Finance category where the firm was praised as ‘highly skilled and knowledgeable’.
She is joined in the commercial property team by Grace Robinson, a Cilex paralegal, who will also be working on sales, purchases, lease reviews and auctions together with property assistance to the firm’s banking clients.
The private client team benefits from the seventh new appointee – Brooke Jefferson – who is a shining example of Swinburne Maddison’s commitment to training staff and giving them the best possible career progression opportunities.
Brooke, who will report to head of the private client team, partner Anna Stephenson, came to Swinburne Maddison on a work experience placement in 2019, was then offered a secretarial
position, progressed to a paralegal and was supported throughout her legal studies to qualify as a solicitor on September 1st this year.
She is now working on her own private client engagements including wills, trusts, LPAs, Court of Protection and Administration of Estates matters.
Managing partner, Jonathan Moreland, is justly proud of the way the firm has both continued to thrive and attract talented new staff throughout 2024. Whilst he attributes much of the firm’s growth to the high regard of its existing clients who provide a steady stream of instructions, Swinburne Maddison has also welcomed several new clients to its roster.
He said: “As another exciting year draws to a close, it gives me great pleasure to announce these new appointments and promotions, which are underpinned by a huge amount of hard work, dedication and growth across all departments.
“Together with our excellent office location at Aykley Heads - at the heart of Durham’s dynamic regeneration and development plans - we confidently expect that the employment opportunities we can offer will enable us to attract further talented lawyers and support staff to work with us as the needs of the business dictate.”
Swinburne Maddison’s headcount now stands at 90.
