Hill Dickinson announces first legal director promotions of 2022

Commercial law firm Hill Dickinson has begun its new financial year by announcing the promotion of 11 of its senior associates to legal director.

The promotions are effective from 1 May 2022 and centre on the firm’s three largest UK offices, in Liverpool, London and Manchester.

Spanning all three of Hill Dickinson’s key business groups – Business Services, Marine and Health – the 11 new legal directors cover a range of practice areas, including corporate, real estate, employment, private client health advisory, health litigation and shipping.

Three of the promotions are in the Liverpool office, six in London and two in Manchester.

Congratulating them on their new roles in the firm, Hill Dickinson chief executive Peter Jackson said: “It gives me great pleasure to support our people in building their careers with Hill Dickinson and see their efforts rewarded by promotion through the ranks.

“These 11 individuals have worked tremendously hard to make their mark within their respective practice area teams and have very bright futures ahead of them. In promoting them to legal director we acknowledge their contribution to the success of our firm and share their pride in becoming senior lawyers at Hill Dickinson. I am delighted to congratulate them all.”

Hill Dickinson has publicly stated its intentions to improve gender balance among its senior lawyers, with a declared aim, set in 2019, to double the number of women in senior roles by 2024. A key part of that strategy has been to nurture and grow the firm’s female lawyer headcount from recruitment onward. Four years on, the number of female lawyers coming through is steadily outpacing men. In this round of legal director promotions, seven of the eleven are women.

Explaining further, Peter Jackson said: “Our growth strategy and aims in respect of gender balance are deliberately steady. The culture we have created for our people at Hill Dickinson is one of the key reasons people join us but more than that, it’s why they stay. This promotions round, as for the past few years, has seen greater numbers of female lawyers coming through, which means we’re steadily improving our balance at senior levels while preserving the culture we’ve worked so hard to maintain.”

The full list of promotions is:

Name                           Practice team              Location

Business Services Group

Rebecca Layton            Corporate                     Liverpool

Emma McIntosh            Real Estate                   London

Louise McMahon           Real Estate                   London

Joe Orme                     Employment                  Liverpool

Rajveer Sehmi              Corporate                     London

Will Steed                     Employment                  London

Alison Batchelor            Real Estate                   Manchester

Katie Austin                  Private Client                Liverpool

Marine Business Group

Trudie Protopapas         MBG    Shipping           London

Health Business Group

Rohana Abeywardana   Health Litigation London

Siôn Davies                   Health Advisory             Manchester