Senior Partner William Riley with new associates Darren Bowen, Richard Fox and Paula Lawn

The recent gloom concerning the credit crunch has not escaped the legal profession, with many law firms across the region enforcing redundancies. Things are not so gloomy at leading law firm Leathes Prior, who are pleased to announce that not only is business thriving despite such trying times, they have also found it necessary to expand and strengthen their team of Associates.

From the 1 May 2008 Darren Bowen, Richard Fox and Paula Lawn were invited by the partners to join Adam McCaw (insolvency) and Paul Oldershaw (commercial property) as Associates of the firm.

Darren Bowen joined Leathes Prior in 1994 and has considerable civil and commercial litigation experience, both in and out of court. Darren is a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives. Darren's appointment will provide valuable assistance to Martin Plowman, partner for civil litigation, who as a recognized leader in the field of mediation, will have more time to devote to increasing that side of his practice.

Richard Fox joined Leathes Prior as a commercial solicitor in January 2005. Richard specializes in a broad range of commercial and compliance matters, including franchising, data protection, terms and conditions, IT and intellectual property, agency and distribution. Richard is an integral part of Leathes Prior’s Commercial Team and is particularly developing his keen interest in data protection work.

Paula Lawn joined Leathes Prior in 2007. She is an invaluable member of the Employment team, working with Partner Dan Chapman, and has taken over the leadership of the claimant side of the Team’s business. Paula has had a number of high profile Tribunal victories since joining the Team and consequently was the only employee-focused employment lawyer rated by the 2008 Chambers and Partner's review of the East Anglian legal profession.

William Riley, Leathes Prior Senior Partner, commented “It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce three promotions; whilst many of our competitors are thinking of downsizing, and some actually are, we are concentrating on expansion and growing all areas of our practice. The three new Associates will play a key role in helping us deliver that vision, and we hope to follow these promotions with further recruitment amongst our ranks of lawyers in the very near future.”.