Leading full-service law firm, Lawrence Stephens, is pleased to announce the promotion of Asim Arshad, Anna Christou, Sarah Gallagher and Ausra Triantafyllidou to Director,  effective from 1 April 2025.

These promotions follow a year of continuing growth for Lawrence Stephens in response to increasing client demand. Director numbers have increased from 28 to 45 and this 60% increase also includes lateral hires in key areas of growth as well as a team of eight Directors recently recruited from Memery Crystal.

• Asim Arshad becomes a Director in the Disputes Resolution team, specialising in commercial litigation. In particular, Asim has extensive experience handling disputes involving crypto assets, including acting for individuals seeking to recover lost or stolen crypto assets. In addition to contentious matters, Asim’s work has included advising on cryptoasset regulation and compliance, token issuance, NFT projects, and acting for one of the industry’s leading mining platforms and token issuing entities
• Anna Christou becomes a Director in the Real Estate Finance team. She joined Lawrence Stephens as a trainee solicitor in 2011. She currently acts for leading UK buy-to-let lenders, bridging lenders, challenger banks and building societies, dealing with both regulated and unregulated loans on commercial and residential property portfolios.
• Sarah Gallagher becomes a Director in the Residential Real Estate team. She heads up Lawrence Stephens’ team of specialists in the new build sector. Her primary client base is formed of purchasers of both leasehold and freehold new build properties, inside and outside of the Greater London area and developers selling plots at a variety of developments. Whilst Sarah’s specialism is largely new build work, she also acts for those selling and purchasing residential properties of all varieties, including shared ownership, HNW and UHNW.
• Ausra Triantafyllidou also becomes a Director in the Real Estate Finance team. She acts for a number of long-standing investors with large commercial, residential and mixed-use portfolios. Her primary focus is on secured lending transactions including investment and development finance matters.  She advises clients on landlord and tenant matters including acquisitions, disposals, lettings, transfers of portfolios to corporate structures and finance transactions. 

Steven Bernstein, Managing Director at Lawrence Stephens, commented: “With these four Director promotions, we are proud to be recognising growth from within our own people. We continue to demonstrate Lawrence Stephens’ growth in traditional sectors and expansion into emerging ones. Asim, Anna, Sarah and Ausra’s specialist expertise reflect the full-service approach we take at Lawrence Stephens, and how we are able to deliver the best outcomes for our clients.”