Solicitor for International Law in London

Practice Areas

Emma is a child law specialist. She joined the care team at Goodman Ray in November 2014 and became a Partner in October 2023. Emma qualified in 1999 and has over 23 years experience representing parents and children in a range of Children Act matters.

Emma specialises in complex care proceedings dealing with allegations of physical and emotional harm, non accidental injury, sexual abuse and fabricated or induced illness. She advises parents who find themselves subject to s.47 investigations and other social services involvement outside of court proceedings.

Emma also specialises in representing parents in relation to arrangements for children following separation. She specialises in cases where there are allegations of parental alienation, implacable hostility and emotional harm through parental conflict. She advises parents where social services may have become involved due to concerns regarding high levels of acrimony. She has considerable experience of cases involving allegations of coercive control, gaslighting and psychological abuse.

Practice Areas

David trained at Baker McKenzie and became a Partner in 2010. David became Head of Corporate in 2020, having previously been Head of Private Equity in London since 2015 and Global Head of Private Equity since 2017.

David is primarily focused on mergers & acquisitions and restructurings for private equity funds, infrastructure funds, pension funds and other clients. David also has significant experience in representing management teams in respect of their equity incentive structures. In addition, David has extensive experience in advising Japanese investors and is a regular visitor to Japan.

Practice Areas

Lucy is a Senior Associate in Watkins and Gunn’s award-winning public law team. Lucy specialises in Equality and Human Rights and acts for the majority of Welsh and Northern Irish victims in the ongoing UK Infected Blood Inquiry. Lucy represents campaigners and victims’ groups fighting closures and cuts to public services. She also advises children and young people with SEN on securing appropriate education and healthcare provision.

Lucy has been involved in some of the most high-profile Human Rights cases the UK has seen, representing 1200 Iraqi civilian victims in the multi-party action against the Ministry of Defence (2015) and representing victims in the News International Voicemail Interception ‘phone hacking’ litigation (2011).

Lucy also has significant experience acting for families in Coroner’s inquests and in actions against the police.

Practice Areas

Mark Craggs is a restructuring and insolvency lawyer based in London.

Mark advises UK and international insolvency office-holders, banks and other creditors, corporates, directors, pension scheme trustees, government bodies, regulators and other stakeholders on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious matters. His practice focuses primarily on formal and cross-border insolvency matters and he commonly advises on:

matters arising in UK and international insolvency proceedings;

recognition applications and matters relating to cross-border insolvency assistance of foreign courts and insolvency office-holders;

contingency planning and security enforcement, including the appointment of receivers;

directors' duties, wrongful trading and the disqualification of directors;

office-holder investigations and claims;

security and other proprietary interests (including the establishment of trust arrangements);

close-out netting and set-off issues;

schemes of arrangement;

specialist insolvency regimes, including investment bank special administration;

distressed M&A;

distressed loan sales;

exit-routes from insolvency proceedings;

solvent terminal procedures and restoration applications; and

issues arising in consensual workouts, including in relation to lender liability.

His work frequently involves EU insolvency law and the laws of other jurisdictions, including the various national enactments of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency.

Mark has extensive experience in a number of key industry sectors, including financial institutions, transport (including aviation, shipping and rail), energy, mining, construction and infrastructure.

Mark has recently been advising directors, creditors and counterparties in relation to several high-profile UK corporate collapses, advising on a number of company voluntary arrangements and schemes of arrangement in respect of UK and foreign debtors, and acting on multiple recognition and related applications, including representing dry-bulk shipping company Daiichi Chuo KK in obtaining recognition of its Japanese civil rehabilitation proceedings in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia under the applicable local enactments of the UNCITRAL Model Law.

Mark's reported cases include:

Maxwell Communication Corporation plc (in administration) [2016] EWHC 2200 (Ch) (acting for the administrators of Maxwell on the closure of various administration proceedings and schemes of arrangement that had been ongoing since the early-1990s);

the Lehman Brothers "Extended Liens" (Re Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) [2012] EWHC 2997 (Ch)) and "Client Money" cases (Re Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) [2012] UKSC 6) (acting for the trustee for the liquidation of Lehman Brothers Inc.); and

McGrath v Riddell [2008] UKHL 21 (acting for the Australian liquidators of the HIH Insurance Group in their appeal to the House of Lords in relation to section 426 of the Insolvency Act 1986).

Mark is a Fellow of INSOL International and a member of a number of committees of INSOL International (including the Technical Research Committee and the Younger Members Committee), as well as co-editor of INSOL World, a quarterly publication. He is a member of the International Insolvency Institute's NextGen Leadership Program, the Insolvency Lawyers' Association and the Association of Business Recovery Professionals (R3). In 2016, he was selected as one of the '40 Under 40' cross-border restructuring and insolvency lawyers worldwide by Global Restructuring Review.

Mark is listed as a Next Generation Lawyer in The Legal 500 and has been described in that directory as an "excellent all-round insolvency lawyer" (2017) and a "'proactive and thorough'... 'emerging talent' whose 'understanding of the pressures and nuances on the various stakeholders ensures that matters… which he handles are dealt with in a commercially pragmatic way'" (2018). The Legal 500 2020 praises Mark for his "very practical and commercial" as well as "measured and sensible" approach, and recognised that he is developing a strong reputation for a range of stakeholders, particularly on cross-border matters.

Mark has written extensively on the subject of insolvency law, including contributions to Lightman & Moss on The Law of Administrators and Receivers of Companies, Sweet & Maxwell, 6th Edn, 2017 (chapters on Leases and Trusts).

Career

Rachel is a partner in our corporate crime and regulatory team and leads the public inquiries practice. She is recognised as a next generation partner in Legal 500. Rachel’s practice covers investigations and enforcement across a range of regulatory issues such as compliance advice and public inquiries, large scale inquests and internal investigations.

Rachel has the benefit of over 20 years’ experience advising businesses and the public sector at the most senior levels on regulatory investigations and enforcement action ranging from workplace fatalities and accidents involving the Health and Safety Executive and Police; fire safety; environmental offences; fire safety; food safety; trading standards and consumer protection.

The experience Rachel has gained advising organisations when things have gone wrong means she is well placed to support and advise organisations to proactively manage their regulatory risk. Her advisory practice goes beyond that, and she often supports clients prepare their business for significant regulatory changes none more so in recent years than as a result of Brexit.

Over the last 10 years Rachel has also built up a strong public inquires practice representing core participants called to give evidence at an inquiry. Almost without exception, public inquiries involve high-profile issues of significant public interest bringing her into the middle of some of society’s biggest issues and Rachel ensures her clients receive the very best support and representation to deliver the very best evidence to the inquiry.

Practice Areas

Nicola Higgs is a partner in the London office of Latham & Watkins and Global Co-Chair of the firm's Financial Institutions Industry Group. She specializes in financial services regulatory advice and has vast experience advising financial institutions and market infrastructure providers on a wide range of complex domestic and cross-border regulatory issues.

Nicola advises global investment banks, corporate finance houses, fund managers, insurers, stockbrokers, market infrastructure, and data services providers on a variety of legal and regulatory risk management matters, with particular expertise in the FCA’s Conduct of Business Rules, European regulatory developments, such as MiFID II, PRIIPs KID Regulation, and the EU Benchmark Regulation, and contested enforcement actions.

She has developed a formidable reputation advising global investment firms on the sale of complex derivative products to professional and retail investors, including cross-border issues.

Nicola also has a strong track record in advising private banks and wealth managers on their regulatory obligations.

Practice Areas

Solicitor, Public Law and Human Rights.

Theodora represents clients in challenges to the decisions and actions of public authorities. She acts in both public law matters, such as judicial reviews and complaints, and in civil claims against public bodies.

Theodora has expertise in cases at the intersection of immigration and public law, and is accredited as a Senior Caseworker in immigration and asylum. She represents individuals who have been unlawfully detained by the Home Office, and people who have been refused adequate support while they await the determination of their asylum claims. She represents a number of individuals who were wrongly accused by the Home Office of cheating on a TOEIC English language test, in both public law challenges and civil claims.

Theodora has a particular interest in rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and frequently acts for protestors. She acted on behalf of Reclaim These Streets in their successful challenge to the Metropolitan Police’s decision to prevent a proposed vigil in memory of Sarah Everard, a woman who was brutally murdered by a serving officer in March 2021. She also acted in a number of other cases concerning restrictions introduced during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Theodora also assists with community care matters, including support under the Care Act 2014, support for care leavers, and support for families with no recourse to public funds.