Durham City’s leading law firm, Swinburne Maddison LLP (Swinburne Maddison) is celebrating a key senior appointment to its team in the newly created position of business and practice development director.
Phil Hourigan, who has enjoyed a career spanning over thirty years with NatWest Group fulfilling area director positions in commercial banking across the North. More recently he was managing director for a large retail operation. He is well equipped to assist the management team in delivering Swinburne Maddison’s business plan and ensuring continued growth and success for the firm.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Hourigan, who joined the firm in mid-September, said:
“My relationship with Swinburne Maddison has come full circle. I was the bank manager responsible for arranging the banking deal when the firm was initially formed, almost 25 years ago, and have been a strong advocate ever since. I have also benefitted from being a client, and now I will be working with them. The role really excites me and gives me the opportunity to put my skills and experience to positive use in helping develop the business and deliver its ambitious plans for continued growth.”
Managing partner, Jonathan Moreland, is delighted about this latest appointment, saying: “We were thrilled when Phil decided to join us. We regard it as a major coup for the practice. This is a newly created role and given Phil’s profile within the regional business community, together with his track record in commercial banking, we are confident he will bring both experience and objectivity to the role to assist with our plans.”
Mr Hourigan’s appointment is just one of seven hires Swinburne Maddison has made over the last few weeks due to an influx of new work.
Two appointments have been made in real estate and development work. Firstly, Mary Foster, a commercial property solicitor, joins Swinburne Maddison from the Newcastle office of a transatlantic law firm, working on a range of commercial property transactions including the sale of agricultural land. She is joined by Victoria Dineen who is currently studying for Chartership with the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and will assist the team with plot sales on various regional residential and commercial development schemes.
The dispute resolution team, headed up by managing partner, Jonathan Moreland, also welcomes three new appointments – Jenna Keir-Kendrew, who joins as a dispute resolution solicitor from the North of England P&I Association Ltd, Matthew Lawton, who joins the team as a paralegal and Alex Siddle, who has been awarded a training contract within the dispute resolution team after working as a paralegal within the firm since October 2021.
Alex’s appointment brings the total number of trainees in the firm to four. Each will be given experience in three departments with the aim of ensuring a good grounding and a rounded view of the career development opportunities each discipline offers.
Finally, Eleanor Uren, formerly employed by North Tyneside Council, has been appointed HR co-ordinator in another newly created role to assist with partner, Carolyn Beal’s, expanding workload as practice manager.
Welcoming all the new appointees, Mr Moreland continued: “It gives me great pleasure to welcome our new members of staff. I should also like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude to our existing employees for their hard work, commitment and loyalty to the firm, which enables us to continue to strengthen and grow our business.
“Following our major reorganisation in May last year, we have continued to go from strength-to-strength and have already hit our three-year targets within 16 months. It has been an incredibly positive experience for the whole firm and while there is uncertainty in the market currently, I am pleased to report that business is booming at Swinburne Maddison, and we are also recruiting two lawyers to join the corporate and commercial team and an additional two lawyers for our private client team.
“We are always interested in receiving speculative applications from talented lawyers irrespective of whether we are actively recruiting for a particular role. If the right individual comes along, we will always explore the options with them.”