Freshfields’ former senior partner Edward Braham has been knighted for services to corporate law in the King’s New Year Honours List, one of several awards handed out to senior City lawyers.
Braham, who served as senior partner at Freshfields from 2016 to 2020, was previously head of corporate at the firm. He retired in 2022 and currently serves as the chair of M&G and as a director of financial and professional services advocacy group TheCityUK. He joins a select list of City solicitor knights, which includes DWF’s Sir Nigel Knowles and Slaughter & May’s Nigel Boardman, among others.
Former Herbert Smith Freehills senior partner James Palmer also received a CBE.
Palmer, who is currently chair of TheCityUK’s legal services group, said he was “grateful and fortunate” to receive the award in paying tribute to fellow lawyers at the firm as well as the broader legal and business community, adding: “I am also deeply grateful for the extraordinary support of my family over the years, helping me to pursue my career.”
Rebecca Maslen-Stannage, HSF’s chair and senior partner, said: “James’s love of, and unwavering dedication to, the law is commendable, having inspired many people and made an exceptional, positive impact on the competitiveness of the UK economy across the wider business community and the legal sector.
“He has been particularly involved in pursuing improvements in corporate and governance law, takeover regulation, capital markets and wider financial services law and regulation. However, his interests and engagement are much wider than this. We are proud to celebrate this well-deserved recognition with James.”
Linklaters’ consultant Vanessa Havard-Williams received an OBE for her work as chair of the Transition Finance Market Review and on the Export Credit Advisory Group. She was previously the head of the firm’s global environmental and climate change practice and founded the firm’s ESG practice, having been a partner at the firm from 1999 to 2023.
Ian Karet, a colleague of Havard-Williams at Linklaters and former interim chair at the Charity Commission, was also honoured for charitable and public service with the OBE.
The former EU advocate-general, barrister and academic Eleanor Sharpston KC was made a Dame for services to justice and legal education in the UK and Europe, while the leading planning silk, Christopher Katowski KC of Kings Chambers in Manchester, received a CBE.
One of Katowski’s former pupils at Landmark Chambers, Lord Banner KC, now at Keating Chambers, praised the award, noting that Katowski’s contribution to the “better functioning of our planning regime has gone largely unsung and under the radar”.
Professor Richard Susskind was also honoured with an upgrade to his OBE. The former technology adviser to the Lord Chief Justice, who spoke at this year’s London International Disputes Week, received the award of CBE for his services to information technology and the law.
Charles Dhanowa KC (Hon) OBE, registrar at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, was also honoured for services to competition law by being upgraded to CBE, following a year in which the CAT handed down a seminal judgment in the Le Patourel litigation while managing the resignation of its former president, Mr Justice Smith.
Other awards include a CBE for former Tribunal Judge Sehba Haroon Storey, lately principal judge of the Asylum Support Tribunal, who was honoured for services to diversity and inclusion, while Women and Diversity in Law Awards judge and distinguished Law Society Council member Dana Denis-Smith received an OBE.
Emma Morris, solicitor to the Infected Blood Inquiry, received an OBE for public service, as did former sub-postmasters Lee Castleton, Christopher Head and Seema Misra. Trade journalist Rebecca Thomson, who first reported the Post Office scandal, was also honoured for services to justice.
Sadiq Khan, a former human rights solicitor and the current Labour Mayor of London, was knighted for public and political services.
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