Law firm Foot Anstey announces three new partner promotions

Published by

Peter Davison

Bristol-based law firm Foot Anstey has announced the promotion of three of its lawyers into the firm's partnership, bringing the total of new partner promotions this financial year to eight.

From 1 January 2023, Suriya Edwards (left) and Kutahya Cherry (right), who are based in Bristol, and Dickon Court, who is based in Plymouth, will become partners at the firm.

All three are members of the EPIC (Energy, Projects, Infrastructure and Construction) team, with developer and energy & infrastructure sector focus.

Martin Hirst, managing partner at Foot Anstey, said: "Congratulations to Suriya, Kutahya and Dickon and on their promotions to the partnership, which reflect the consistently high-quality advice and service they offer our clients, as well as their outstanding contributions to our firm's communities.

"Each of these new Partners has a strong sector focus and illustrates the continued success and strength of our sector strategy, and the scale of our ambitions for future growth."

Suriya is a construction lawyer and the firm's net zero construction lead.

Her core technical specialism is to advise on a range of non-contentious construction matters and her experience covers energy – including advising on solar power plants and battery storage facilities – development and infrastructure projects.

Suriya's broad experience means she considers cross-sector synergies as critical to future-proofing contracts and in facilitating contract/commercial solutions.

Her clients are contractors, private sector developers, funders, consultants, housing associations and public sector bodies, and she is an active participant in The Chancery Lane Project, as well as being a CBI infrastructure board member.

Kutahya focuses on all property law aspects of renewable energy transactions.

She works predominantly for developer and funder clients in the energy sector on solar, storage, EV infrastructure and other renewable projects.

She has dealt with projects from inception through to sale and finance.

Kutahya has detailed knowledge of the renewable energy market and helps her clients navigate site acquisition, development, funding and sale of their projects, be they stand-alone or large asset portfolios.

Kutahya's previous experience covers wider general commercial property asset classes, which she has also put to good use in assisting energy clients on their broader property-related legal needs.

Dickon is a dispute resolution solicitor who leads major disputes and dispute avoidance processes for national and international clients.

His focus is on resolving disputes arising out of significant energy, infrastructure and construction projects and he has been involved in a number of the early disputes in the battery storage space, which to date have included financing issues and technical failure as well as delay and availability problems.

Dickon’s experience includes both high value commercial disputes and disputes in construction and engineering.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.