Double partner appointment marks Belfast expansion
Foot Anstey McKees has appointed Chris Milligan and Michael Kelly as partners in Belfast, continuing its growth following last year’s tie-up with Northern Ireland firm McKees. The appointments come during a wider expansion phase for the firm, which has made 10 new hires in Belfast since June 2025.
Milligan (pictured) joins from Tughans, where he spent five years advising on energy, infrastructure and real estate projects. He said he was ‘thrilled to be joining Foot Anstey McKees’, adding that the firm’s ‘sector specialisms align closely with my own’.
Kelly arrives from Shoosmiths’ banking & finance team and is recognised for work across real estate finance and energy finance. He described it as ‘a very exciting time to be joining Foot Anstey McKees’ and said he ‘very much look[s] forward to playing my part’.
Martin Hirst, managing partner of the Foot Anstey Group, said the pair’s ‘wealth of experience and deep connections’ would ‘strengthen our position in Northern Ireland’ and be ‘critical to the overall evolution of the firm’.
