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Big Bar boost: Fountain Court makes seven strong team hire, including two silks

Leading set Fountain Court Chambers has boosted its commercial offering and with the recruit of two silks and five junior barristers.

Littleton Chambers’ Stuart Ritchie QC, Serle Court Chambers’ Jonathan Adkin QC have joined alongside 3 Verulam Buildings’ Laura John and Erskine Chambers’ Alex Barden.

Cited as a leading figure in commercial litigation, Ritchie is described by The Legal 500 as ‘a no-nonsense genius; probably the best all-round junior silk.’ Fellow commercial litigator Adkin is described as an individual who ‘works at a ferocious pace and his advocacy is sublime.’

Meanwhile, the set has also launched a commercial crime practice which will be headed by banking heavyweight Richard Lissack QC – who joined in May from Outer Temple Chambers – alongside newly recruited juniors Nicholas Medcroft from Wilberforce Chambers, and Outer Temple Chambers duo Robin Barclay and Eleanor Davison.

Juniors Ian Bergson, Max Evans and Max Kasriel have also been invited to join the chambers on completion of their pupillages, where they will focus on building practices in the set’s core areas.

With the new recruits, and the recent appointments to silk of Fountain Court tenants Rosalind Phelps QC and Ben Valentin QC, the set’s membership now stands at 34 Silks and 48 junior barristers.

Lissack said: ‘There is a significant gap in the offering of the commercial bar at the point at which civil litigation, regulation and enforcement collide – a gap which Fountain Court is now perfectly placed to fill.’

Chambers head Stephen Moriarty QC said: ‘Commercial crime is a major growth area among solicitors and increasingly at the Bar. It is an area where we have been seeing an increasing level of demand from our clients, particularly those in financial services. But because it sits at the junction of commercial and criminal law it has not, until now, been easy to instruct appropriate teams from the same set.’

‘In creating this team, we are setting out to fill this gap, providing new and existing clients with what we hope will be a unique service.’

Lissack is one of London’s most established finance silks. Called to the Bar in 1978 and taking silk in 1994, his practice covers a broad range of advocacy across finance, regulatory, white collar crime and professional negligence.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Read more the Bar in : ‘Set in stone – testing time for mid-tier sets as elite London sets tighten their grip’