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 (alex.molyneux@harbottle.com)
He has a depth of experience and specialist expertise in advising trustees, beneficiaries, protectors, executors, administrators in contentious situations arising out of disputes involving these structures. In particular, he advises on disputes relating to the succession of valuable family businesses and other assets held in complex structures, involving trusts, foundations, partnerships and other corporate entities, as well as cross-border estates. These cases have often involved issues around the capacity of settlors and testators.
Charles frequently works at the point of intersection between traditional private client litigation, white-collar crime, regulatory investigations, and fraud. In addition, he advises trustees facing challenges in matrimonial litigation and has experience handling disputes involving Sharia law.
Charles is described in directories as “a brilliant litigator, incredibly clever and accessible“. He is ranked Band 1 in Chambers & Partners, listed in the ‘Hall of Fame’ by The Legal 500, and recognised as ‘Top Recommended’ in the contentious trust Spear’s 500 index.
Before becoming a partner at Harbottle & Lewis in April 2025, Charles was for 25 years the head of Macfarlanes’ private client disputes group.
He covers the full spectrum of contentious matters, including in-print and online defamation, malicious falsehood, misuse of privacy information, breach of confidence, data protection, cyber attacks, data breaches, information theft, harassment, blackmail, right to be forgotten and subject access requests. He also advised on regulatory media and data complaints, reporting restrictions, NDAs, injunction applications, Norwich Pharmacal applications, online takedowns, apologies, damages claims and coroners' proceedings.
Michael often urgently advises clients who are in a crisis, typically when trying to protect reputation by stopping or mitigating the publication or broadcast of a false story, project managing a response to a cyber attack or preventing the unlawful misuse or disclose of information. He also provides regular training and preparedness sessions to clients to help get ahead of a media or cyber crisis.
He also protects publishers, platforms, data controllers and processors from legal claims.
Michael is ranked as ‘Up and coming’ in Chambers and Partners and is ‘Recommended’ by Spears Magazine.
Tony advises on a wide range of corporate transactions, including investments and venture capital deals, buying and selling businesses and shareholder arrangements. Tony is widely recognised as one of the leading venture capital lawyers in the UK and is a trusted adviser to entrepreneurial businesses and to the investors in such businesses, with a particular focus on the technology, media and entertainment sectors.
Tony frequently advises emerging companies and the founders behind such companies on their full lifecycle from inception of an idea through to funding rounds, exit and beyond as well as the venture capital funds and investors that invest in such high growth businesses.
Tony is recognised as a "Leading Partner" by The Legal 500 and ranked by Chambers in venture capital work.