South East: DMH Stallard promotes four to partner

London and South East-based DMH Stallard, a Top 100 law firm, is delighted to announce four promotions in its regional centres as part of its continuing expansion programme aimed at developing its core services and sector strengths.

Nick Leavey, James Regan, Dominic Travers and Frank Jennings have all been made partners to further strengthen the Firm’s Real Estate, Corporate and Technology Teams respectively.

Nick Leavey is a Real Estate expert based in Gatwick who specialises in Development and Regeneration work acting for both commercial and public sector clients. His team has recently been appointed to act for the London Borough of Croydon in relation to the transfer of development sites into an Urban Regeneration Vehicle (URV), an innovative joint venture with a private sector partner, with a view to regenerating the Borough, whilst maximising capital receipts from surplus property. Other clients include the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and Shoreham and Newhaven Port Authorities.

Brighton-based James Regan heads the Firm’s Retail Property Group, which advises national chains and independents in connection with their leasehold properties. Regan has been instrumental in developing the ’DMH Direct’ technology platform for retail clients with sizeable property portfolios. The product give clients access to online instructing and reporting systems, which can save them time and reduce legal costs. Clients include Tesco Express and Martin McColl.

Dominic Travers, who joined DMH Stallard from Pinsent Masons’ City based Corporate group in August 2006, has played a significant role in several complex deals since joining DMH Stallard. These include advising the Management Team of Lloyds TSB Registrars in connection with the sale of the business and assets of Lloyds TSB Registrars (now known as Equiniti, the UK’s leading provider of share registration services) to Advent International; acting for the shareholders of Premier Medical in the sale to and reinvestment in a new company backed by Nomura, the private equity investor; advising Loewy Group in its two stage £16m private equity fund raising from specialist media investors VSS and ABRY and advising on several M&A transactions including Friday-Ad Group in relation to its buy and build strategy which started in early 2007.

With a background which includes working for Psygnosis (part of Sony) and Vodafone, Frank Jennings is a key member of the DMH Stallard Technology Group and head of the firm’s Commercial Team. He has extensive experience in technology law, intellectual property and commercial contracts and as such is a panellist for World Media Law Report and a columnist for SC Magazine (IT Security). Clients include MarineTrack, telematics experts (who Frank has advised on a number of agreements including service provision, re-seller and their warranty policy); retail software solutions provider, Itim and IT services company RDF Group plc.

Commenting on these promotions, managing partner Tim Aspinall said: “At DMH Stallard we have created an open career development process with equality of opportunity for everyone, based purely on an individual’s abilities. These four talented individuals have progressed through our evaluation process and we are delighted to announce their appointment to Partner. Each has developed specialist technical expertise, strong project management skills and a commercial understanding of the challenges facing their respective clients. I am confident that each of them will make a significant contribution to the Firm’s further growth in London and the South East.”