Herbert Smith Freehills named TMT Team of the Year at Legal Week's British Legal Awards

Herbert Smith Freehills won the TMT Team of the Year Award at Legal Week's prestigious annual British Legal Awards, held in London on 25th November 2015.

The award recognised the role of a Herbert Smith Freehills team led by London TMT partner Nick Elverston in the launch of a Middle East-based 24 hour news channel.  This included being parachuted into the project when the channel was already behind schedule, assisting in getting it to launch, deploying our legal and crisis management skills when it was closed down by government authorities on the launch day and subsequently helping it get back on track for re-launch.

Nick Elverston commented: "This is a fabulous example of cooperation across various practice areas and offices.  Amongst other notable contributions, the client was introduced by Dubai senior associate Zoe Ireland, then successfully pitched to by London TMT partner Amanda Hale and myself.  London senior associate Hayley Brady and secondee to the client Caroline Hartley (now with Discovery) successfully negotiated a range of supplier, stringer, content and talent agreements across the Middle East. Tim Leaver led on employment advice dealing with a wide range of jurisdictions from the UK to the Yemen‎. When the going got tough, Middle East Head Zubair Mir was on hand to resolve the immediate issues and Dubai disputes partner Craig Shepherd recovered a small fortune's worth of impounded high tech broadcasting equipment.  Now we are assisting them set up again in a, hopefully, more benign environment".

The Herbert Smith Freehills TMT was also short-listed for the "Commercial Team of the Year" for the Friends Life's global IT transformation and outsourcing project and the firm for "CSR Initiative of the Year" for the Whitechapel Legal Advice Clinic, and "Diversity Initiative of the Year" for our various gender programmes.

Separately, the firm was also shortlisted for "Law Firm of the Year" alongside Linklaters, Allen & Overy, Latham & Watkins and White & Case at the City A.M Awards held in London on the same night.

About Herbert Smith Freehills

Operating from over 23 offices across Asia Pacific, EMEA and North America, Herbert Smith Freehills is at the heart of the new global business landscape providing premium quality, full-service legal advice. We provide many of the world’s most important organisations with access to market-leading dispute resolution, projects and transactional legal advice, combined with expertise in a number of global industry sectors, including energy, natural resources, infrastructure, technology and financial services. www.herbertsmithfreehills.com

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