Shepherd and Wedderburn Makes Three New Partner Appointments

Leading UK law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn has delivered a significant boost to its practice with a trio of partner promotions across its offices in Edinburgh and London. The promotions, effective from 1 May 2008, bring the firm-wide total number of partners to 72.

The Insolvency and Restructuring team has seen Fiona Paterson promoted to partner.  Meanwhile, Philip Knowles has become a partner in the firm's Corporate Finance team, with Gordon Hay receiving recognition for his work in the oil and gas sector becoming a partner in the Banking and Finance team.

Patrick Andrews, chief executive of Shepherd and Wedderburn commented:  “I am delighted to recognise the wealth of talent we currently have at the firm via these promotions.  Fiona, Philip and Gordon have already made a major contribution to the success of their specialist areas. Their promotions are well deserved and in line with our strategy to develop these practice areas further in 2008.

“These promotions reflect our aim to recognise and reward talent and hard work and our ongoing expansion is based on recruiting, retaining and rewarding the very best people in the market.”

Fiona Paterson

Fiona is based in Edinburgh where she specialises in corporate and financial restructuring, corporate insolvency, distressed debt and security issues. She is dual qualified in both Scots and English law and accordingly advises on domestic and cross border matters. Fiona has been involved in a number of high profile deals and recently was the principal adviser to receivers in Scotland and administrators in England when FOPP, the UK's largest independent music retailer, entered into insolvency proceedings last year.

Philip Knowles

Philip is based in London where he specialises in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, debt and equity finance and general corporate matters. He has extensive experience in advising clients on corporate acquisitions and disposals of real estate portfolios.

Gordon Hay

Gordon is based in Edinburgh and is a member of the Banking and Finance team focusing on the financing of the upstream oil and gas sector, securitisation and property finance. He recently returned from a secondment with the Bank of Scotland's Energy Team and has a wide range of clients including banks, financial institutions and borrowers. He recently acted on behalf of the Bank of Scotland on an acquisition facility for Delek Energy Systems to assist in the purchase of Elk Resource.