Howes Percival has appointed Paula Dumbill as a partner and head of its commercial team within its Corporate, Commercial, and Banking (CCB) practice.
Paula will be based at the firm’s Leicester office and joins from Browne Jacobson where she was head of the commercial team in the East Midlands and lead health tech partner.
Howes Percival’s CCB practice advises clients on significant and transformational acquisitions, disposals, as well as a full range of contractual matters. It also provides a dedicated banking and finance service to its borrower clients, and also to banks, financial institutions, funds, and other lenders. In recent years, the CCB team has grown to over 30 fee earners and been restructured to create three dedicated service lines to enable the firm to offer a more specialist service to clients.
Paula has deep experience of advising clients on technology, infrastructure and outsourcing projects, mission critical joint venture arrangements and drafting and negotiating all of the commercial contracts that businesses need to manage their risks on a day-to-day basis. She is recognised as a ‘leading individual’ in Legal 500 and has also led a commercial team ranked by Legal 500 in Tier 1 in the East Midlands in Legal 500.
Andy Harris, partner and head of Howes Percival’s CCB team said,
“It’s been a long-held objective to create a dedicated “Commercial” team alongside our specialist Corporate and Banking teams, with the “tech” focus clients need. Paula is exactly the right fit for us.
“Our ambition is to be the ‘go-to’ firm for corporate, commercial, and banking advice in the Central and Eastern regions, by utilising the vast and varied experience our partners and senior lawyers have to provide no-nonsense, business-focussed advice. To this end, we’ve invested heavily in the team over the past couple of years, Paula’s appointment continues this approach, and I am delighted she is with us to continue our growth journey.
“This is the first time that we have appointed a head of commercial. Paula’s appointment will allow us to grow our commercial work by promoting ourselves not only as commercial contracts specialists to existing and new clients, but also to bring a deeper layer of technology, infrastructure and outsourcing expertise. Our offer will cover the range of commercial agreements required to regulate trading terms at all levels of the supply chain, with a particular focus on healthcare but also the automotive, food and beverage, leisure and tourism and education sectors.”
Commenting on her appointment, Paula Dumbill said,
“I’m very proud to be joining Howes Percival. The firm has a fantastic reputation for the quality of its work, and I am excited to be involved in helping to develop its commercial practice.
“2020 proved to be a challenging year for many businesses who have found themselves unable to continue operating on the basis that they had done so previously. Many businesses have looked to law firms for advice on their contractual obligations where circumstances have meant an inability to fulfil their obligations, or for their suppliers to fulfil their obligations to their customers.
“Businesses have also had to make swift decisions on new technologies that can enable them to be more agile and operate successfully in the changed environment that we find ourselves in for the delivery of goods and services.
“In this context, it is important to offer proactive, client focused services - a dedicated team of commercial contracts specialists, who can devote the time to understanding how a client’s business operates and who can successfully document trading arrangements that minimise risk and protect interests.”
For more information on Howes Percival’s corporate advisory services visit: https://www.howespercival.com/services/corporate/
