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Author: Alex Molyneux

Harbottle & Lewis promotes Harry Bresslaw, Ed Lane and Alasdair Wilson to the partnership

Posted on by Alex Molyneux

Harbottle & Lewis has announced three partner promotions today in line with its commitment to continued growth in the media and creative industries and private wealth sector, and to the expansion of its corporate practice. Harry Bresslaw, Ed Lane and Alasdair Wilson will each join the partnership with effect from 1 April 2025.

Harry is an entertainment lawyer with a focus on the theatre, film and TV industries. He advises producers, creatives, investors and venues across the theatre industry on matters including commissioning, development, production, financing, national and international transfers, licensing, digital captures and other associated sector arrangements. He works with clients both in the UK and beyond, ranging from established West End and Broadway producers to new and emerging producers, on all aspects relating to the creation and exploitation of plays, musicals and other live stage projects. He also provides legal and strategic advice to major film and TV production companies and SVOD platforms, and acts for a number of high-profile individual rights-holders on the protection and exploitation of their IP rights and assets.

Ed advises founders, businesses and investors on a broad range of corporate, corporate finance and commercial matters. He has a particular expertise in the creative industries, including film and TV, video games and music, and in the broader media, entertainment and technology sectors. His practice spans mergers and acquisitions, fundraises from pre-seed to series A and beyond, startups, growth equity investments, music catalogue sales, public takeovers, joint ventures, management incentive arrangements, including EMI options, and SEIS/EIS investments. He is actively involved as a speaker and mentor for a number of different industry accelerators and trade bodies, including IndieLab, BAFTA and UKIE.

Alasdair advises individuals, families and fiduciaries based in the UK and overseas in relation to all matters of international taxation, wealth structuring, global compliance and cross-border estate planning. This includes tax and legal advice to wealth generators or custodians who are moving between countries, seeking to maintain tax efficiency across multiple jurisdictions or passing ownership or control to the next generation. Alasdair has significant experience in advising US-UK clients, individual entrepreneurs and family businesses. He also has a particular interest in clients connected to civil law jurisdictions, in particular France, Belgium and Switzerland, as well as to Latin America and the Middle East.

Senior partner Catherine Bedford commented:

“We are thrilled to be welcoming three outstanding lawyers to the partnership. Harry, Ed and Alasdair have continually demonstrated exceptional legal skills, dedication to client care and a drive to bring success to our business. Their promotions will strengthen our offering to individuals, families and companies and will enhance our expertise in key areas including the entertainment and media and private wealth sectors. We look forward to seeing them build on their accomplishments and continue their development as partners.”

For more information, please contact Alex Molyneux, Communications & Marketing Manager: ([email protected])

Harbottle & Lewis partners with Legora to integrate innovative AI platform into its client offering

Posted on by Alex Molyneux

Harbottle & Lewis has announced today that it will partner with Legora (formerly Leya) to integrate Legora’s innovative AI platform into its offering to clients. This technology will maximise efficiency, strengthen operational processes and fuel collaboration in use cases primarily within due diligence work and document review.

Following a structured evaluation of leading AI platforms led by the Harbottle & Lewis innovation team with a particular focus on enhancing the firm’s document review capabilities, the decision was made to adopt the Legora platform and incorporate it into its working practices.

The partnership became effective as of 17 March 2025.

As part of its commitment to fostering a culture of innovation powered by technology, last year the firm launched its internal Innovation Fund which it uses to uncover and invest in innovative solutions to improve the way it works by streamlining legal and business administrative tasks.

Tony Littner, co-managing partner at Harbottle & Lewis and manager of the Innovation Fund, said:

“The announcement of this partnership is an exciting step forward for the firm as we utilise our Innovation Fund to invest in not only the most sophisticated technology but that which fits best with how we do things and addresses the particular needs of our business. Legora’s AI tool will enhance our offering and help to ensure that we remain ahead of the curve when it comes to using technology to deliver the best possible service to our clients.”

Michael Vasalos, head of innovation at Harbottle & Lewis, said:

“We are delighted to be partnering with Legora and adopting its collaborative AI platform and state-of-the-art data extraction technology. After a rigorous evaluation process during which we assessed a range of products from multiple AI providers, it became clear that Legora’s AI tool is the perfect fit for us and will undoubtedly optimise our current processes. Not only is the product one that will provide great value to us and our clients, but Legora’s deep understanding of the legal industry and impressive recent growth were key factors in our decision to partner with them and we are looking forward to working alongside them in exploring further use cases.”

Max Junestrand, CEO at Legora, commented:

“Harbottle & Lewis stands out as a firm that truly understands innovation, demonstrated by their very structured approach when running us through several accuracy and quality benchmarking exercises against alternative solutions. We believe they are the ideal partner for Legora. Together, we’re redefining what’s possible in legal practice; enhancing collaboration, eliminating inefficiencies and delivering meaningful outcomes for clients. This is the future of law and together we’re leading the way.”

About Legora

Legora (formerly Leya) is the world’s first truly collaborative AI for lawyers. With offices in London and Stockholm, Legora is on a mission to empower exceptional lawyers by unleashing their expertise. The platform is utilised in nearly 20 countries by over 250 clients. Legora collaborates with clients to help them work more efficiently, accurately, and devote more time to complex problem solving and high-impact, strategic work.*

*Company description provided by Legora

Harbottle & Lewis strengthens client offering with new partner hires

Posted on by Alex Molyneux

Harbottle & Lewis today announced two lateral partner hires to strengthen its client offering. Private client disputes partner Charles Lloyd and reputation management partner Michael Yates will both join the firm in April 2025.

Charles Lloyd arrives at Harbottle & Lewis from Macfarlanes where he has held a leading position within his field for over 30 years, specialising in private client disputes, particularly international trusts and estates litigation. Charles’s client base includes high net worth individuals engaged in complex family and succession-related disputes, often involving multi-jurisdictional offshore trust and corporate structures. Charles’s eminent reputation and extensive experience will enable the firm to build on its leading private client practice with a specific focus on enhancing the contentious work that it does in this space.

Charles commented:

”I am really looking forward to joining Harbottle & Lewis and what is already a strong and highly reputed private client practice. This move provides a great opportunity for me to help build on the firm’s existing expertise and will enable me to contribute towards creating a leading private client disputes practice.”

Michael Yates joins Harbottle & Lewis from international law firm Taylor Wessing. As an information litigator, Michael advises high net worth and high-profile individuals and companies on reputation management, privacy protection, confidentiality, cyber response and media and information law disputes. His expertise aligns perfectly with Harbottle & Lewis’s renowned proficiency in the media, entertainment, technology and private wealth sectors. Michael’s significant focus on cyber response dovetails with the firm’s strategic emphasis on technology, and he will work alongside the firm’s technology and data lawyers to further develop its services in this area.

Michael said:

“I’m delighted to be joining the firm’s market leading media and information group and am very excited to soon be working alongside the firm’s fantastic media, tech, data and cyber experts. I look forward to working with clients to help them navigate what is an ever more hostile and complex media and information landscape, protecting them from threats to their reputation, privacy and information and mitigating the increasing risk of cyber attacks. There is no better place to do this work.”

This strategic expansion underscores Harbottle & Lewis’s commitment to bolstering its highly-regarded private client practice and enhancing its offering to high net worth and often high-profile individuals, as well as expanding and deepening its offering to companies. The addition of Charles and Michael to the partnership demonstrates the firm’s ambition to grow and to provide clients with unparalleled expertise across a spectrum of legal services.

Tony Littner, co-managing partner at Harbottle & Lewis, commented:

“The addition of two such high quality lawyers to our partnership supports the strategic growth of our firm. Focusing deliberately on extending our offering to both our private client and corporate client base, Charles and Michael are perfectly placed to complement our existing practice groups and contribute significantly to our continued growth and success.”

For further information, please contact:

Alex Molyneux, Communications & Marketing Manager ([email protected])

The hero or the villain: when the online front page goes wrong

Posted on by Alex Molyneux

The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) has upheld a complaint against Mail Online over a collage of pictures on their online front page that gave a “misleading impression” that a ‘hero’ security guard who stopped a knife attack was actually the perpetrator.

The IPSO rejected the newspaper’s defence that this was made clear in the full article when users clicked through. The decision highlights the risk of free-standing headlines and images that trade accuracy for impact.

The article

Mail Online’s mobile home page published the headline “Knifed at random” accompanied by a collage of three photographs. The largest photograph was of a man’s face, while the other images were smaller and included a pixellated image of man being led away by police. The text below read “Leicester Square ‘knifeman’ who stabbed mother and daughter, 11, did not know them, police believed”. Users could then click through to read the full article in the usual fashion.

The IPSO found that the composite image and accompanying text on the home page gave the “misleading impression” that the man pictured prominently was the perpetrator of the attack. In fact, he was a security guard who had intervened and was hailed as a ‘hero’.

The publication argued that this was clarified in the text of the article itself, but the IPSO did not accept this as “the connection between the man pictured and the story was not explained on the [home] page.” A caption had originally been present, but it was removed when the photograph was enlarged “for editorial emphasis”.

The IPSO stated: “While the article to which readers could click through went on to identity the security guard and his relationship to events, this was not sufficient to rectify the misleading impression given by the homepage.”

Mail Online was required to publish a correction.

This complaint serves as a reminder that the press has a duty to take care with its online front pages, which now frequently combine images and headlines, by including any important context.

The ruling can be found here.

Harbottle & Lewis ranks 10th in RollOnFriday’s Best Law Firms to Work At 2025

Posted on by Alex Molyneux

We are pleased to be ranked 10th in RollOnFriday’s Best Law Firms to Work At 2025. Following our debut in the rankings last year, we continue to be recognised among other leading law firms for fostering a collaborative, engaging and supportive workplace.

Each year, RollOnFriday surveys thousands of people working in private practice to assess their firms across key areas such as career development, management, culture, work/life balance, pay and office environment. This year’s results are a testament to our continued commitment to providing a workplace where our people can thrive both professionally and personally.

The full rankings can be viewed here. In the coming weeks, RollOnFriday will release further insights into each category.