header-logo header-logo

Laytons ETL—Scott Hilton & Simon Jones

13 October 2025
Categories: Movers & Shakers , Profession
printer mail-detail
City firm launches real estate corporate team to meet growing client demand

City of London commercial law firm Laytons ETL has launched a new real estate corporate department to address the expanding property needs of its corporate client base. The new practice will be jointly led by partners Scott Hilton (pictured, left) and Simon Jones (right), both of whom bring strong corporate followings and extensive experience in the sector.

Hilton joined Laytons ETL last year from US firm Armstrong Teasdale, while Jones became a partner following the firm’s 2022 merger with Cannings Connolly, the specialist real estate firm he previously owned and led. They are joined by senior associates Harry O’Donnell and Shaan Patel, associate Sophie Hartley, and executive assistants Liz Wills and Kerry-Ann Matticks.

The new division will serve a growing roster of large corporate occupiers and investors, including PLCs, across offices, retail, betting, industrial and logistics assets. It will work closely with Laytons ETL’s tax, corporate, and dispute resolution teams to deliver integrated advice on transactions, investments, and restructuring.

Hilton said the new practice would ‘enhance the service we offer to the growing number of big-ticket clients who have chosen Laytons ETL as their legal partner’. Jones added that the launch ‘reflects the status of our team as an increasingly significant player on the corporate real estate scene’ and would ‘enable us to provide the focused but multi-disciplinary service clients require’.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Head of corporate promoted to director

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Firm strengthens international arbitration team with key London hire

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

FCA contentious financial regulation lawyer joins the team as of counsel

NEWS
Social media giants should face tortious liability for the psychological harms their platforms inflict, argues Harry Lambert of Outer Temple Chambers in this week’s NLJ
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024—once heralded as a breakthrough—has instead plunged leaseholders into confusion, warns Shabnam Ali-Khan of Russell-Cooke in this week’s NLJ
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now confirmed that offering a disabled employee a trial period in an alternative role can itself be a 'reasonable adjustment' under the Equality Act 2010: in this week's NLJ, Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve analyses the evolving case law
Caroline Shea KC and Richard Miller of Falcon Chambers examine the growing judicial focus on 'cynical breach' in restrictive covenant cases, in this week's issue of NLJ
Ian Gascoigne of LexisNexis dissects the uneasy balance between open justice and confidentiality in England’s civil courts, in this week's NLJ. From public hearings to super-injunctions, he identifies five tiers of privacy—from fully open proceedings to entirely secret ones—showing how a patchwork of exceptions has evolved without clear design
back-to-top-scroll