header-logo header-logo

11 December 2025
Categories: Movers & Shakers , Profession
printer mail-detail

Birketts—Private client team

Four private client specialists join the team in Bristol

Birketts has strengthened its private client capability in Bristol with the arrival of a specialist team led by partner Caroline Alexander (pictured). Joining her are legal director Charlotte Coombs, senior associate Daisy Taylor and trainee legal executive Georgie Lennan, together adding more than 15 years’ combined experience to the firm’s rapidly growing practice.

Alexander brings over two decades of expertise advising on the administration of high-net-worth and complex estates, often with international or contentious elements. She is known for her work on national and international probate matters, advising on large landed estates and negotiating with HM Revenue & Customs on inheritance tax issues, including agricultural and business property relief.

Coombs, Taylor and Lennan have previously worked with Alexander as specialist private wealth advisers, supporting clients on estate planning, succession and acting as independent administrators. Their collective experience broadens Birketts’ South West offering and deepens its capacity across a wide range of private client matters.

Alexander said Birketts’ ‘progressive and ambitious’ approach and its core values ‘really resonated’, describing them as ‘family values which as private client lawyers helping families, we live and breathe’. Louise Long, partner and head of private client advisory, welcomed the team, noting that they bring ‘valuable experience’ which enhances the firm’s capability and supports clients in navigating both opportunities and challenges.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Cripps—Radius Law

Cripps—Radius Law

Commercial and technology practice boosted by team hire

Switalskis—Grimsby

Switalskis—Grimsby

Firm expands with new Grimsby office to serve North East Lincolnshire

Slater Heelis—Will Newman & Lucy Spilsbury

Slater Heelis—Will Newman & Lucy Spilsbury

Property team boosted by two solicitor appointments

NEWS
A High Court ruling involving the Longleat estate has exposed the fault line between modern family building and historic trust drafting. Writing in NLJ this week, Charlotte Coyle, director and family law expert at Freeths, examines Cator v Thynn [2026] EWHC 209 (Ch), where trustees sought approval to modernise trusts that retain pre-1970 definitions of ‘child’, ‘grandchild’ and ‘issue’
Fresh proposals to criminalise ‘nudification’ apps, prioritise cyberflashing and non-consensual intimate images, and even ban under-16s from social media have reignited debate over whether the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) is fit for purpose. Writing in NLJ this week, Alexander Brown, head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alexandra Webster, managing associate, Simmons & Simmons, caution against reactive law-making that could undermine the Act’s ‘risk-based and outcomes-focused’ design
Recent allegations surrounding Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor have reignited scrutiny of the ancient common law offence of misconduct in public office. Writing in NLJ this week, Simon Parsons, teaching fellow at Bath Spa University, asks whether their conduct could clear a notoriously high legal hurdle
A landmark ruling has reshaped child clinical negligence claims. Writing in NLJ this week, Jodi Newton, head of birth and paediatric negligence at Osbornes Law, explains how the Supreme Court in CCC v Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] UKSC 5 has overturned Croke v Wiseman, ending the long-standing bar on children recovering ‘lost years’ earnings
A Court of Appeal ruling has drawn a firm line under party autonomy in arbitration. Writing in NLJ this week, Masood Ahmed, associate professor at the University of Leicester, analyses Gluck v Endzweig [2026] EWCA Civ 145, where a clause allowing arbitrators to amend an award ‘at any time’ was held incompatible with the Arbitration Act 1996
back-to-top-scroll