Harbottle & Lewis LLP

Co-managing partners: Charlie Leveque and Tony Littner

Senior partner: Catherine Bedford

Number of partners: 46

Number of lawyers (non-partner): 88

Firm overview:

Harbottle & Lewis is a dynamic, multifaceted law firm that provides a wide range of legal services to a creative and entrepreneurial client base.

The firm is renowned for its sector specialisms and takes a highly collaborative approach, joining dots to provide a uniquely personalised service. Blending expertise, creativity and empathy, Harbottle & Lewis empowers clients and their people to achieve their goals.

The firm has an independent, entrepreneurial heritage and focuses on authentic and long-lasting partnerships built on trust, integrity and collaboration. Its diverse teams have a genuine passion for their fields of expertise and a drive to develop innovative solutions to often complex problems. The firm goes the extra mile to be the best at what it does, leveraging technology to support its work and combining pragmatism with smart commercial nous. Like the industries and people it serves, the firm is highly adaptable and forward-thinking.

Harbottle & Lewis partners with the big and the small, from the next big things to the stadium fillers, cutting edge startups to global corporations, early-stage entrepreneurs to established industry leaders, and household names to private individuals and their family offices. It is known for its broad and deep-seated sector knowledge. This is very much a part of its DNA and means it understands its clients’ worlds and their unique challenges. It combines its sector specialisms with expertise across all the traditional practice areas to provide clients with tailored solutions that truly add value.

UK-based, international advice:

The majority of clients require advice that has an international dimension. Whether it is wealth structuring, immigration advice, business advice or advice on arriving, leaving or investing in the UK, the firm makes sure that clients' UK interests are aligned with their international affairs.

Main areas of practice:

Family:

The firm has a proven track record of handling complex family law issues with sensitivity and compassion, quietly and efficiently. It fights its clients’ corner – but it does so with respect and consideration for their family. The firm is respected within the profession for resolving matters quickly and discreetly.

Personal Tax & Wealth-Structuring:

The firm provides comprehensive wealth-structuring advice. It has a diverse client base, which means that it often comes across problems requiring innovative solutions.

The firm's clients benefit from its expertise in creating the most efficient structure to serve their personal circumstances.

Philanthropy & Charity:

By sharing a genuine understanding of what its clients want to achieve (gained from advising HNW and high-profile individuals and families, together with wide contacts in the philanthropic sector), Harbottle & Lewis can provide clear, transparent advice on structuring arrangements in the most tax efficient way.

Probate & Trust Management:

The firm believes that, during a time of bereavement, its clients need clear advice, provided with compassion and sensitivity. The firm can act in an administrative capacity for trustees and executors, while advising beneficiaries on the ways in which they might be able to mitigate inheritance tax through the use of past death variations of wills.

Reputation Protection:

Reputation is built over time but can be destroyed in minutes. The speed with which material, true or false, can spread on a global basis means it is essential that steps are taken to protect personal information and respond quickly and decisively when it is under threat. The firm acts for individuals, corporates and well-known brands to protect reputation and privacy, and to safeguard sensitive information. It has an unrivalled history in reputation protection.

Residential Property:

The firm deals with all aspects of high-value residential property, from sales and purchases to lettings, re-developments and disputes. It is experienced at structuring acquisitions efficiently, and works with experts in its property litigation and tax teams in order to provide a comprehensive service to its clients.

Wills & Estate Planning:

The firm provides a personalised, compassionate, and discreet service. Its clients benefit from its extensive experience dealing with UHNW families and individuals, as well as estates containing image rights, royalties and other such assets and income streams.