Lawrence Stephens is delighted to announce the promotion of nine colleagues to Senior Associate, and a further six colleagues to Associate, effective from 1 July 2026. These promotions are from across the firm and reflect the contribution made by them in the delivery of our services to our clients and the wider firm.

 Aaron Rajan becomes a Senior Associate in the Residential Real Estate team. Aaron is focused on the prime Central London residential real estate market and has developed great experience in dealing with tight timelines and complex ownership/purchase structures.

Annabel Andreou becomes a Senior Associate in the Family team. Annabel specialises in advising and assisting individuals in connection with separation, divorce, parenting agreements, child arrangements, and domestic abuse injunctions.

Bola Kim becomes a Senior Associate in the Real Estate Finance team. Bola focuses on working with regulated and unregulated banks for property refinances, bridging loans and secured lending.

Charlotte Hamilton becomes a Senior Associate in the Corporate and Commercial team. Charlotte trained at the firm and qualified into the Corporate and Commercial team. She has been instrumental in developing our Flourish bundled legal services product aimed at early-stage businesses.

Joseph Furze becomes a Senior Associate in the Private Wealth and Succession Planning team. Joe previously practised as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand before moving to the UK. He advises high net worth clients with their succession planning and their internal restructurings, including advising clients in relation to trusts, tax, Wills and Powers of Attorney.

Lefteris Kallou becomes a Senior Associate in the Dispute Resolution team. Lefteris specialises in insolvency matters and resolving complex and high-value disputes relating to breach of contract, shareholder and boardroom, debt and professional negligence claims.

Louisa Hartley becomes a Senior Associate in the Commercial Real Estate team. Louisa joined Lawrence Stephens with the team from Memery Crystal in early 2025, she advises on landlord and tenant matters, acquisitions and disposals, development projects and corporate real estate.

Lucy-Jane Barnett becomes a Senior Associate in the Banking team. Lucy focuses on secured lending transactions, including investment and development finance matters, from deal originations to refinancing and loan/property management assistance.

Miran Sharif becomes a Senior Associate in the Real Estate Finance team. Miran focuses on advising bridging lenders and borrowers ranging from first-time buyers to high net-worth individuals and property developers.

Becci Collins becomes an Associate in the Employment team. Becci represents businesses and individuals on contentious and non-contentious matters spanning the breadth of employment law.

Bethany Jacobs becomes an Associate in the Real Estate Disputes and Secured Recoveries team. Bethany trained and qualified at the firm, she advises on a wide range of residential property possession claims and commercial forfeiture, debt recovery claims, 1954 Act Lease renewals, secured lending recovery and enforcement work.

Carla Galkoff becomes an Associate in the Corporate & Commercial team. Carla trained and qualified at the firm and advises on a range of matters, including share and asset sales, mergers & acquisitions and company restructuring.

Isabella Tamlyn becomes an Associate in the Private Wealth & Succession Planning team. Isabella trained and qualified at the firm. She advises high net worth clients with their succession planning and their internal restructurings, including advising clients in relation to trusts, wills and Powers of Attorney.

Mithushan Sivagurunathar becomes an Associate in the Banking team. Mithushan acts for overseas and domestic banks, bridging lenders, alternative lenders and non-bank lenders in respect of secured lending transactions.

Mohammad Hammoud becomes an Associate in the Commercial Real Estate team. Mo joined Lawrence Stephens with the team from Memery Crystal in early 2025, his focus is on landlord and tenant matters and commercial property acquisitions and disposals.

Steven Bernstein, Chief Executive Officer at Lawrence Stephens, commented: “Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing my legal colleagues recognised for their dedication, expertise, and contribution to our clients and the firm. Equally pleasing is to see these promotions happening across the firm, and not just from one or two teams which indicates how the firm is managing to grow across the board in what have been globally challenging times.”     

Lawrence Stephens is delighted to share that Senior Associates Emma Cocker and Milana Katz have been promoted to Partner, as of 1 April 2026.

Emma is a senior employment lawyer, acting for businesses and individuals across the whole spectrum of employment law and a variety of industries from owner-managed businesses to large corporations. She regularly handles contentious terminations and claims relating to breach of contract, wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal. She also acts in High Court claims relating to breaches of confidentiality obligations and post-termination restrictions arising from employment contracts, share purchase agreements and shareholders’ agreements.

Emma originally trained at Freshfields and joined Lawrence Stephens in 2023 after five years at specialist Employment firm Thomas Mansfield.  

Milana is a member of our Banking team and her clients include leading banks, alternative debt providers, funds and borrowers. She regularly acts on real estate finance deals on both a regulated and unregulated basis across different asset classes including residential properties, hotels, student accommodation, nurseries and care homes.

Milana joined the firm as a Trainee in 2017 after having completed a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Corporate Law from UCL.

Chief Executive Officer Steven Bernstein commented “Our firm continues to grow quickly and I am delighted to welcome Emma and Milana to our expanding Partner cohort. It is also especially pleasing to see promotions from within our own ranks. I am confident that both Emma and Milana will continue to drive the business forward and I wish them continued success in their careers with us.”

As from Monday 2 March Lawrence Stephens Ltd. will adopt the term ‘Partner’ instead of ‘Director’ to denote our most senior lawyers or shareholders.

Our practice has been to list all Directors at Companies House and as our firm has grown rapidly, so has the number of Registered Directors. We have recently overhauled our governance rules and in recognising that every Registered Director owes statutory and fiduciary duties regardless of how active they are in the overall governance of the firm, we feel that to list all Directors does not match the roles and responsibilities in fact performed. 

We have then reduced the number of Registered Directors to those who are also shareholders in the firm. Reducing the number of Directors increases accountability, decreases personal and corporate risk, and strengthens our governance regime.  

Aside from us using the term Partner instead of Director, nothing else will change. Our clients will still be working with the same lawyers, and our rates and terms of business shall remain the same.

Lawrence Stephens is a London based firm but has many international clients and a large number of our assignments have an international component.

To support our growth in this area, we are pleased to announce that Gregory Palos has been appointed as Head of International, alongside his existing role as Head of Financial Institutions. 

In this role, Gregory will assist and provide direction to our International Desk Heads in their roles, and to help guide the evolution of our international strategy over time.

We established six regional desks in early 2025, coordinated though Desk Heads who have language skills and an understanding of the cultural, social and business environment in these jurisdictions. Read an overview of our International services here.

Gregory was also recently elected as President of the European Lawyers Group, a formal network of 17 European law firms. Gregory has Cypriot heritage and his extensive business and legal experience enables provides the network with effective leadership, guidance and support.

Lawrence Stephens has been a member of this network for some years and Gregory has been tasked with developing the relationship and professional development programme between these firms, as well as recruiting new members in new jurisdictions. Please see their website for more details:  https://european-lawyers-group.eu/