The Legal 500

Back to Legal500 home

Hempsons

HEMPSONS HOUSE, 40 VILLIERS STREET, LONDON, WC2N 6NJ
Tel:
Work 020 7839 0278
Fax:
Fax 020 7839 8212
DX:
138411 CHARING CROSS-1
Web:
www.hempsons.co.uk
Email:
Manchester, London, Harrogate

What we say about the firm's legal practice in London

Corporate and commercial

Within Partnership, Hempsons is a third tier firm,

Hempsons leads the market in medical partnership matters, providing an ‘excellent’ service. The ‘knowledgeable and accessible’ Lynne Abbess is recommended.

Crime, fraud and licensing

Within Crime

Dispute resolution

Within Professional discipline, Hempsons is a second tier firm,

Hempsons’ core disciplinary work revolves around defending healthcare practitioners before the GMC and the GDC, supplemented by prosecution work for a number of professional regulatory bodies including the General Social Care Council. Regulatory head Chris Morris acted for Mr Shiekh in his appeal against the GDC’s decision to remove his name from the Dentists Register.

Human resources

Within Employment, tier 8

Hempsons is recommended for its ‘faultless service’ to health sector clients.

Insurance

Within Clinical negligence - defendant , Hempsons is a first tier firm,

Led by the ‘absolutely brilliant’ Bertie Leigh, the nine-partner department at Hempsons consistently ‘provides clients with a high level of service’. Ongoing work highlights include advising the NHSLA on the Opiate Dependant Prisoners Litigation, where up to 1,000 prisoners are claiming clinical negligence and breach of human rights (alleging that they were forced onto detoxification programmes and given inadequate treatment for withdrawal symptoms). Noted partners include managing partner Janice Barber; Christian Dingwall who has 25 years’ experience in the healthcare field; John Holmes, who is ‘always helpful and is a real source of information’; Rachel Kneale, who has a ‘lovely manner’; and Zoë Harvey, who is ‘able to conduct cases in an efficient and personable manner’.

Within Overview,

Leigh Day & Co dominates the ranking for claimant clinical negligence, with Capsticks and Hempsons leading the market on the defendant side. As well as rising in the ranking for clinical negligence work, Stewarts Law LLP stands out for claimant personal injury, with its focus on high-value catastrophic injury work. Defendant personal injury remains a stable market, with Beachcroft LLP, Berrymans Lace Mawer LLP and Greenwoods Solicitors leading the way.

Private client

Within Charities and not-for-profit , tier 4

Hempsons is well known and has a first-class reputation for acting for charities associated with healthcare such as Royal Colleges, professional bodies, medical research charities, and NHS charities. Recent examples include a governance review for the Arthritis Research Campaign. Clients across other sectors include the Salvation Army Trust, the NSPCC, Childline, and Battersea Dogs & Cats home. Ian Hempseed is recommended.

Public sector

Within Healthcare, Hempsons is a second tier firm,

‘Professional and knowledgeable’, Hempsons acts for the NHSLA and 65 of the country's 152 PCTs. Lynne Abbess focuses on medical partnership and Chris Morris, who is praised for his ‘good teamwork’, specialises in dental law. Christian Dingwall ‘makes complex problems easy to understand’, while Jamie Foster, John Holmes, Jean Sapeta and Bertie Leigh are also important members of the team.

Real estate

What we say worldwide

Please choose another Hempsons office to view full details of what we say in that region, or choose from this list to view a specific editorial reference in context.

London

Offices in London

North West

Offices in Manchester

Yorkshire and the Humber

Offices in Harrogate

Search News and Articles

Legal Developments in the UK

Legal Developments and updates from the leading lawyers in each jurisdiction. To contribute, send an email request to

  • Student employees – new restrictions on employment

    On 10 February 2010 a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules was laid before Parliament which is due to come into force on 3 March 2010.
    - Penningtons Solicitors LLP

  • Landlord & Tenant Briefing

    Dilapidations in commercial premises – ten points to consider
    - Bircham Dyson Bell LLP

  • Being a helpful Landlord may be a mistake!

    Most landlords and their solicitors try to resist the impulse to be helpful, however, in these recessionary times when landlords are concerned to avoid empty space, there may be the temptation to take shortcuts to ensure a letting proceeds. In circumstances where it is intended that Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (the 1954 Act) should not apply to the tenancy, i.e. that the tenant should not have the benefit of security of tenure, then occupation before the lease has been finalised (and the appropriate ‘contracting-out’ steps taken) is a potentially dangerous step and needs to be taken only when the landlord has fully comprehended the potential consequences.
    - Bircham Dyson Bell LLP

  • New regime for approval of major transport projects set to ‘switch on’

    The Planning Act 2008 (the Act) introduces a new regime designed to speed up the planning and, in turn, the delivery of infrastructure projects of national significance. For transport projects, it is one of the most important pieces of legislation in recent years. The new procedure will have to be used for any third runway at Heathrow, amongst other high-profile projects.
    - Bircham Dyson Bell LLP

  • Divorce and the media: the courts, the pay-outs and the speculation

    The rising divorce rate and some well-publicised settlements running into tens of millions of pounds have focused attention on a growing issue in divorce cases: just how far can spouses go to obtain information about their partner’s financial affairs?
    - Schillings

  • Top ten really useful cases of 2009

    If you want your panel solicitor to‘get off the fence’, need to know when a cause of action accrues or wondered whether the judiciary live in the 21st century, the following cases from 2009 provide some really useful guidance. With professional negligence claims on the increase, whether you are giving or receiving legal advice, the cases discussed below highlight practical points for all legal advisers to be aware of.
    - Bond Pearce LLP

  • The twilight zone: legal issues for directors

    there is no legal definition of the term ‘twilight zone’ (perhaps derived from the cult TV series, the writer would like to think), which is now widely used to describe a period of trading when a company has, or is predicted to have, insufficient cash to pay its debts as they fall due. This might be an immediate cash-flow crisis or the problem might be anticipated many months ahead.
    - Holman Fenwick Willan

  • Cloud computing:key issues for SMEs

    Although many definitions exist, broadly speaking ‘cloud computing’ is the outsourcing of specified IT functions via the internet (the cloud) to provide or receive services that would otherwise only be available if the end user had installed the appropriate hardware and/or software on desktops, or on local networks controlled by that organisation itself. Such services may include the use of software over the internet or remote storage of business data by a third-party provider. One benefit of this is that businesses can structure payment for these services differently (for example pay-as-you-go or on a subscription basis), rather than having to pay large sunk costs for long-term software licences, and the purchase and installation of IT infrastructure necessary to support the services locally.
    - SJ Berwin LLP

  • Commission victorious in ‘regulatory holiday’ action brought against Germany

    On 3 December 2009, following an action brought by the European Commission under article 226 of the EC Treaty (now article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU) the European Court of Justice (ECJ) confirmed that Germany had failed to comply with its obligations under the European regulatory framework for telecommunications (the Common Regulatory Framework (CRF)). The ECJ’s judgment in European Commission v Germany [2009] confirms that Germany acted unlawfully by adopting a national law excluding ‘new markets’ from regulation – so called ‘regulatory holidays’.
    - SJ Berwin LLP

  • New Commission

    On Friday 27 November 2009 the new European Commission, which will begin its mandate early in 2010, was announced by Commission President José Barroso. This announcement followed a week after the appointment of Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton as the President of the European Council and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy respectively, the two new roles created by the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009.
    - Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP
© 2009 legal500.com