Ward Hadaway continues growth of its social housing offer in Newcastle

The social housing team, part of the broader Built Environment group at the firm, is considered one of the largest, most-established legal teams working in the sector in the North. Over the last 18 months, the UK Top 100 firm has continued to expand its social housing offering, with some significant new appointments and the expansion of its highly regarded dedicated housing management team into the North East. These latest appointments mark the next phase of this growth.

Robert Emson has joined the firm as a Managing Associate having spent 20 years working in-house with a major national housing association and brings with him a vast amount of experience of national housing management matters and associated litigation.

Commenting on his appointment, Robert said: “This is a really exciting opportunity for me and I am delighted to be joining such a great team. Ward Hadaway is one of the leading legal firms within this sector and has an excellent reputation. I’ve worked in-house for over 20 years so it’s exciting to be given the opportunity to apply my knowledge and experience working with multiple clients and partners.”

Tyla Malloy has been appointed as a lawyer in the development team and Naoise Webster, who works within the social housing litigation team, has recently graduated as a solicitor after completing training seats in Employment, Immigration, Healthcare and Commercial Litigation.

In addition, the firm has recruited a highly experienced charity law solicitor to its growing team. With over two decades of expertise in charity governance and regulation, Jo Loake joins Ward Hadaway’s Newcastle office. Jo is particularly renowned for advising social housing providers and charities on a diverse range of governance and regulatory issues. She will deliver invaluable support to the firm’s social housing clients in navigating the stringent and complex regulatory framework they work within, and advice to a wide variety of charitable and not-for-profit organisations.

The firm operates its social housing offering across all three regional offices in Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle – providing a full-service solution to the firm’s registered provider clients regional and national local authorities and other sector partners.

Experienced lawyers deal with all property transactions, including site acquisitions, development, re-financing, planning and infrastructure, together with comprehensive housing management services including tenancy management, enforcement action and defending housing disrepair claims.

Social Housing Sector Head, Julia Thomson, said: “It’s great to see the growth of our social housing team in the North East which will support and enhance our service offer to clients across the region and nationally.

“We continue to attract high-calibre solicitors such as Robert and Jo but it’s equally pleasing to see newly-qualified solicitors such as Tyla and Naoise coming through the firm. We are committed to nurturing talent and developing our employees and our newly-qualified solicitors follow in the footsteps of numerous Ward Hadaway people at all levels that have joined the firm as trainees.”