Practitioners: appliance of science adds winning edge to practice

The FT Innovative Lawyers awards search out legal practitioners who stretch their skills to address changes under way in the practice of law. The legal expertise of each may be wide-ranging — from digital finance to policymaking to emerging markets — but they all share a facility for innovative thinking that is relied on by colleagues and clients.

The 10 law firm practitioners featured here were selected for leadership and for impact on the practice or business of law, or both. 

For the panel of judges, Marion Palmer ultimately stood out in this “innovative practitioner” category of the awards for the impact of her pioneering role in aligning scientific knowhow with the practice of law.

Innovation that incorporates unusual skills should be more widespread across law firms, observed one judge.

A scientist, who joined Hogan Lovells to help found one of the first in-house science units in a law firm, Palmer is a fee-earner. Thanks to her leadership and ideas, her colleagues and the firm’s clients are not only better informed about science, but are also more scientific in applying legal skills and knowledge.

WINNER: Marion Palmer
Head of global sustainability, policy and strategy, Hogan Lovells

Marion Palmer joined Hogan Lovells almost three decades ago as a founder member of the firm’s science unit.

Now, she leads the firm’s efforts to manage the use of scientific expertise across its activities by analysing evidence, briefing lawyers involved in litigation, and helping to recruit expert witnesses. Palmer is a scientist but has worked for 28 years as a fee-earner at the firm.

Her cases include successfully defending manufacturers of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines against class action lawsuits and advising a maker of metal hips against claims.

During the Covid pandemic, she helped design and secure regulatory approval for a protective shield to prevent the virus’s spread during surgery.

Mark Austin
Partner, Latham & Watkins

Capital markets expert Mark Austin has emerged as a leading adviser to the UK government and City regulators on promoting London’s future as an international finance centre.

Austin joined Latham & Watkins last year after a 22-year career at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advising clients on high-profile initial public offerings, other fundraisings, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate work.

In recent years, he has been a leading adviser to reviews by the government and by the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK’s financial regulator, on how best to revive capital markets and to help reverse London’s decline as a listing venue.

The FCA’s recommended easing of the UK’s listing rules led some to worry about a loss of investor protection, but it has been approved by the new Labour government and came into force in July. Austin received a CBE for services to the economy this year.

JP Douglas-Henry
Partner, DLA Piper

With 30 years of experience advising clients worldwide on regulatory matters and disputes, JP Douglas-Henry took on the new role of managing director of sustainability and resilience for DLA Piper’s international network outside the US in 2021.

He co-ordinates the firm’s efforts on environmental, social and corporate governance mandates, reporting directly to DLA Piper’s global co-chief executive, Simon Levine.

Douglas-Henry’s brief also includes helping to steer the network’s pro bono work and overseeing and directing the firm’s Law& brand.

Since 2020, this venture has developed services beyond traditional advice, including litigation funding, business advisory, and AI-powered risk detection for clients.

His role is to understand how these new business lines can be expanded to meet the needs of the firm’s global client base.

Joanne Gillies
Partner, Pinsent Masons

Glasgow-based global head of litigation Joanne Gillies has pioneered a more active approach to challenging claims about mis-sold PPI and other insurance products — requiring a re-engineering of systems for clients facing mass claims.

In 2019, on behalf of NatWest bank, she set up a team of students and other casual workers using legal tech to process paperwork cheaply and strategically to challenge low-value PPI claims individually, in the county court, rather than settling them automatically.

In parallel, the firm advised NatWest in attempts to enforce dismissal of some PPI claims on the basis that they were out of time. The Court of Appeal upheld this position in 2021, though it was overruled last year and awaits further appeal.

Gillies’s work led to the full development of an “end-to-end” claims management system by the firm to help clients reduce costs in dealing with similar high-volume, low-value claims.

Jason Hungerford
Partner, Mayer Brown

Jason Hungerford’s long career as an adviser on economic sanctions and export controls brought him to the fore when actions were taken against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

His recent work includes advising French food group Danone on the distressed, lossmaking sale of its Russian business to a Kremlin-installed management in May, following the seizure of its operations in the country. He also helped UK green jet fuel developer Velocys complete a takeover offer despite David Davidovich — an investor and a Russian associate of Roman Abramovich — being sanctioned by a UK asset freeze.

Previously based in the US, Hungerford now heads Mayer Brown’s international trade team in London. Since 2006, he has advised a wide range of clients on US, UK and EU sanctions, export controls and anti-corruption and anti-money laundering requirements.

Patricia Madrona García
Senior associate, Littler

Over two decades, Patricia Madrona García has honed her skills as a labour lawyer and emerged as a champion for women’s rights and equality in the profession. Madrona joined the Valencia office of Littler, which specialises in representing employers on labour issues, in 2022, after 14 years at Cuatrecasas. She also maintains roles as an associate law professor at Valencia university and with the Bar Association of Valencia (ICAV).

In 2020, she co-founded and is now president of ICAV’s equality observatory — a body that works to prevent discrimination and harassment in the legal sector against women and also others based on their race, religion, class, disability, or political views.

In 2023, the ICAV published protocols to tackle harassment of members, most of whom are self-employed, by clients. These have since been adopted by bar associations across Spain.

José Eduardo Martins
Partner, Abreu Advogados

José Eduardo Martins’s combination of legal and political careers has helped him emerge as one of Portugal’s most experienced practitioners in environmental, energy, and natural resources law.

The law graduate was elected to the country’s parliament just before his 30th birthday in 1999, remaining an MP for over a decade, until 2012. He served as the country’s secretary of state for the environment from 2002 to 2004 before joining Abreu Advogados in 2005 after his governing party fell from power.

Since then, he has built his firm’s reputation by advising clients on Portuguese and EU rules on the environment, waste and water management, and carbon emissions — as well as the risks inherent in environmental, social and governance principles. He has also advised other Portuguese-speaking jurisdictions on related environmental projects and regulations.

Jennifer Rees
Partner, Dechert

Jennifer Rees has carved out a niche advising emerging market countries in issuing sovereign and corporate debt, as part of her practice on cross-border capital markets at Dechert.

Clients include a wide range of governments and institutions in north Africa, the Middle East and former Soviet republics.

Last year, she added to her work for Egypt by advising on the country’s first placement of a low-interest, sustainable renminbi-denominated “panda bond” in China, backed by African and Asian infrastructure investment banks, which raised Rmb3.5bn ($480mn).

During her career, Rees has worked on a variety of other novel projects, including first-of-their-kind bond issuances in Georgian Lari and Kazakhstan Tenge.

She is a specialist in Islamic financing, helping governments such as Bahrain, Oman and Jordan issue debt. In Albania, she has advised on four bond issuances in 10 years.

Bradley Rice
Partner, Ashurst

Bradley Rice’s role in his firm’s financial services regulatory team demands a “focus on digitalisation, digital finance and all things ‘fintech’ and ‘regtech’,” he says.

Early in his career, he worked with start-ups trying to compete with incumbent financial services groups, before advising established businesses in the sector, such as Goldman Sachs, on launching digital services.

As a member of Ashurst’s digital finance and fintech practice, he regularly advises on the fast-changing regulatory demands created by the digitisation of financial services.

Rice also jointly leads the firm’s Fintech Legal Labs programme, which provides legal and other support to fintech start-ups, and is involved in the firm’s internal explorations of new technology. For example, he had a central role in developing XB Adviser, a digital service offering clients advice on cross-border bank licensing.

Raúl Rubio
Partner, Pérez-Llorca

Digital law expert Raúl Rubio joined the Spanish firm at the end of 2022 to help drive its modernisation and adoption of new technology. And, this year, he has played a central role in the assessment and rollout of the firm’s generative AI system. The system is designed to save time by automating tasks ranging from document redactions to document drafting and processing.

Rubio also helped set up the European Centre for Digital Regulation, a collaboration between the firm and Madrid’s Carlos III University. The initiative, launched in April, aims to bring together public and business interests to analyse new rules, show regulators how to harmonise standards across Europe, and reduce legal uncertainties in the sector.

Before joining Pérez-Llorca, Rubio was a partner in digital law at Deloitte Legal in Spain and head of Baker McKenzie’s IT and communications law practice in Madrid.

Profiles compiled and edited by RSGI researchers and FT editors. “Winner” indicates an Innovative Lawyers 2024 award, the rest are in alphabetical order.