Fieldfisher has announced new leadership for its dispute resolution team as it unveils its new partners, four of whom are disputes specialists.
In all, Fieldfisher has made up 12 partners, down from 13 last year.
Daniel Hayward and John McElroy have been appointed as the co-leads of dispute resolution, replacing Colin Gibson, who is retiring from the partnership after 28 years, having led the group for 13 years.
Gibson is relinquishing stewardship of more than 100 dispute lawyers in the UK, and close to 200 others across the firm’s network.
The team will be augmented by four new disputes partners: William Glover (commercial litigation, London), Daniel Sheehan (commercial litigation, Manchester), Antonio Delgado (international arbitration, Madrid) and Christian Schultz (technology litigation, Hamburg).
McElroy, who joined the firm from Hausfeld in 2024, has more than 20 years of experience handling complex and high-value commercial litigation and international arbitration matters, with a particular emphasis on financial services and contractual disputes.
McElory is the current vice president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association and also a judge at this year’s Women and Diversity in Law Awards, which are hosted by The Global Legal Post and will be held in central London on 28 April.
Hayward specialises in complex, high-value international disputes and is the global co-head of international arbitration. He advises governments, corporates and ultra-high-net-worth individuals on a variety of litigation and arbitration matters involving contract, shareholder, fraud, negligence, regulatory and whistleblower issues.
Among the matters McElroy and Hayward will now oversee is a range of disputes reflecting the firm’s international ambitions, including high-profile Ukrainian, Eastern European and Russian-related matters.
These range from sanctions challenges for Belgian construction company Dana Astra in the UK and EU appellate courts to the billion-dollar Russian aviation litigation, acting for a group of claimants, for whom it last year defeated a jurisdictional challenge to move the case from the UK to Russia.
McElroy said: “It’s a privilege to step into this role alongside Dan. Our disputes team has real momentum across Europe and beyond. We’re grateful to Colin Gibson for his leadership and the platform he has built – we fully intend to build on that legacy as we scale our complex litigation and arbitration offering.”
Hayward added: “The breadth of work and talent across all levels in our group is striking,” citing its work in sanctions, CIS, fraud and asset recovery disputes, adding it had “tremendous capability across our European team, particularly in international arbitration, banking and finance, and insolvency”.
Gibson, who will be setting up a new legal advisory consultancy specialising in crisis management after a break from practice, reflected on his achievements, including “shifting our practice from mid-size to heavyweight through involvement again and again in the most significant cases in London, such as PrivatBank, Magomedov, Yukos, ENRC and the Blue Sky crypto fraud case”.
He added that his proudest management achievement – noting, wryly, “it would be wrong to call it a highlight” – was guiding the firm through Covid.
Welcoming the class of 2026, he concluded that his “personal highlight has been seeing the best trainees and associates become partners during my tenure” and that his best legacy would be “that the team is so successful in the coming years that my name is rarely mentioned. I would watch that with quiet satisfaction”.
Alongside the four new disputes partners – representing the discipline that accounted for the most promotions – there are new partners across tax, clinical negligence, technology and data, real estate construction, corporate, regulatory and commercial.
The promotions spanned the firm’s Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin, Hamburg, London, Madrid and Manchester offices.
London led the line with the most promotions, with five partners, followed by Manchester promoting two and single promotions elsewhere. Three of the new partners are women compared to six last year.
Fieldfisher’s managing partner, Robert Shooter, now in his second term, said the promotions reflected the firm’s European network, “further reinforcing our One Europe strategy”, which has seen it invest in UK and EU talent, alongside a PEP increase to £1m for 2025.
He concluded: “These promotions reflect the hard work, expertise and dedication shown by each of our new partners. We’re incredibly proud of everything they’ve achieved and excited to see what they go on to accomplish next.”
Last August, Fieldfisher reported a 3% gain in profit per equity partner in its 24/25 financial results, hitting £1m as firm-wide revenue, including that of its verein structure, inched up 1% to £385m on an annualised basis.
Earlier this month, the firm said it was set to relocate around 90 roles to Belfast in order to bring its core business services functions together in one place.
The newly-promoted partners are:
Siobhan Gillespie, Tax: Contentious Tax, London
William Glover, Dispute Resolution, London
Will Jones, PIMN: Clinical Negligence, London
Nikhil Shah, Technology & Data, London
Samantha Thompson, Real Estate Construction, London
Adam Jones, Corporate, Manchester
Daniel Sheehan, Dispute Resolution, Manchester
Javier Fuentes, Corporate, Barcelona,
Maud Grunchard, Regulatory, Brussels
Jamie Woodcock, Corporate & Commercial, Dublin
Antonio Delgado, International Arbitration, Madrid
Christian Schultz, Technology Litigation, Hamburg
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