Sackers announces promotions for 2020

Sackers has promoted Naomi Brown to senior counsel. In addition, Katharine Swire has been promoted to associate director, and Angela Stafford, Emily Rowley and Emily Whitelock to senior associate.

The promotions took effect on 1 August 2020. The total number of partners now stands at 29 and other lawyers at 33.

Announcing the promotions, Ian Pittaway, senior partner, said: “Our success as a firm depends on the quality of our lawyers and these promotions are all thoroughly deserved. Despite the current challenging circumstances, we have continued to meet the needs of all our clients, delivering consistently high quality advice and service.”

Naomi Brown is an experienced pensions lawyer, advising trustee and employer clients in a range of sectors on all aspects of pensions law. She supports a number of trustee clients on the full range of “business as usual” issues, such as drafting scheme documentation, compliance with new legislation and member queries. Recent work has included advising trustees on bulk transfers of their DC arrangements to master trusts and some major bulk annuity projects.  Naomi is the second fee earner at Sackers to be appointed to the new role of senior counsel, following Arshad Khan’s appointment in November 2019.

Katharine Swire is a senior member of Sackers market-leading Know-how team, whose responsibility it is to keep Sackers lawyers and clients up to date with recent legislative and regulatory developments in the pensions world. She is a member of the firm’s employment, public sector and pensions litigation teams and is involved in producing the firm’s Quarterly briefing and case reports.

Angela Stafford is also a member of the Know-how team, having joined the firm in 2019 from Allen & Overy where she advised trustees and employers of DB and DC schemes on a wide variety of matters.  In addition to her work supporting Sackers lawyers, preparing publications such as the weekly 7 Days digest and training, Angela is also involved with international legal updates through Ius Laboris, the global alliance of leading pensions and employment law firms.

Emily Rowley is a general pensions lawyer who advises trustees and employers on a wide range of DB and DC issues. She has recent experience of advising on scheme closures, issues relating to section 75 debts, consolidating scheme rules, and the winding-up of pension schemes. Emily has expertise in pensions taxation, public sector pensions and advising non-associated multi-employer schemes. She has a particular interest in the issue of trustee board diversification, having written and spoken on the topic.

Emily Whitelock advises on a broad spectrum of pensions matters. These range from large projects such as liability management exercises and bulk transfer exercises, to member-related queries and contractual negotiations. She has a particular interest in trustee governance and compliance and recently completed a secondment to a large trustee client to provide legal, strategic and commercial assistance across a range of scheme related issues.