Richard Nelson

Richard qualified as a solicitor in 1975 joining Freeth Cartwright & Sketchley, becoming a Partner in 1980. In 1983, he left to form Nelsons where, as Senior Partner, he led it to become one of the largest firms in the East Midlands and amongst the largest 50 firms in the country. He left Nelsons to set up Richard Nelson Solicitors in April 2003.

Richard has substantial experience and has gained a national reputation for criminal and regulatory work. In the course of his career, he has dealt with some of the largest cases presented in Court. The Legal 500 for 2008 has rated Richard joint number one for crime and fraud in the East Midlands and has described him as ‘inspirational’ and ‘one of the best fraud lawyers with a truly national profile’.

He was a founder member of the Complex Case Practitioners’ Group, is Secretary of the Serious Fraud Association and a member of the Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers.

He also has hands-on business experience and has held a number of non-executive directorships which have provided him with further practical insight of relevance to the firm’s work.

Marie Dancer (nee Bales)

Marie trained as a Barrister and was called to the Bar in 1999; she then trained at Nelsons Solicitors and obtained dual qualification as a Solicitor on 2nd April 2002. She transferred to RNS from Nelsons with Richard Nelson in April 2003.

Marie specialises in defending fraud cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC, BERR and the CPS. She is also expert in money laundering, confiscation and restraint orders. She has experience in running teams of lawyers, defending cases which are regarded as Very High Cost Cases. Legal 500 for 2008 describes Marie as ‘outstanding on the defence of high-value fraud cases’.

She is a member of Middle Temple, The Law Society, the Association of Women Solicitors, the Young Fraud Lawyers in the North Association and is on the committee of the Young Solicitors Group and the Law Society for Nottinghamshire.

Marie is the partner in charge of operational matters at RNS.

Jonathan Wright

Jonathan trained in Hampshire before moving to London and spending 9 years involved in defending large and complex business crime cases. He qualified as a solicitor on 3rd November 1997. He transferred to the firm in March 2006, where he manages the Cardiff office.

Jonathan is a member of the Law Society’s panel of approved Supervising Solicitors for Very High Cost Cases and as such has a wealth of experience in handling large scale, high value fraud cases including those prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, Special Compliance Office and Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office. Jonathan is referred to in the Legal 500 for 2008 as expert “on all aspects of [fraud] cases, including POCA restraint, and confiscation proceedings”.

He has particular experience of defending large MTIC cases and has been actively involved in successful applications to stay proceedings in high profile MTIC (Operation Vitric) and Duty Evasion cases (London City Bond).

Jonathan is a member of the Law Society.

Emma Brooks

Emma Brooks completed her training at a firm in Leeds and qualified as a solicitor on 17th September 2001. She then worked for 5 years at a large defence practice in London, where she defended a variety of criminal cases including serious and organised crime. Emma has acquired a reputation as a strong advocate.

Emma joined the London office of RNS in February 2007.

Emma is a key member of our Professional Disciplinary and Regulatory team. Her experience includes representing a variety of regulated professionals, including solicitors who are under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with representation before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.

Emma is a member of the Law Society, Solicitors Assistance Scheme and the Young Fraud Lawyers Association.

Rachel Buckley

Rachel qualified as a Barrister and was called to the Bar in 1994. She then joined Nelsons Solicitors where she obtained dual qualification as a Solicitor on 3rd March 1997. Rachel joined RNS in 2004.

Rachel is a specialist in defending fraud allegations by the Serious Fraud Office, BERR, HMRC and other regulatory bodies.

She is experienced in defending cases which are regarded as Very High Cost Cases and is a grade A case manager.

Rachel is a member of the Law Society and Lincoln’s Inn.

Hilary Campion

Hilary has over 30 years experience as a Practicing Employment Lawyer. For 23 of those years he was a Partner and Head of Employment Law in the Nottingham office of the international law firm, Eversheds.

He is a solicitor and joined RNS in 2008 as Director of Employment Law.

His vast experience covering both contentious and non contentious employment law work, is a valuable resource to both employer and employee clients of the firm.

He is a member of the Law Society and the Employment Lawyers Association.

Amy Cheunviratsakul

Amy completed her law degree at Leicester University and then trained as a Barrister at Nottingham Trent Law School. She was called to the Bar in October 2007. She then trained with Richard Nelson Solicitors and obtained dual qualification as a Solicitor on 1st February 2010.

Amy specialises in defending fraud cases prosecuted by the SFO, BERR and CPS and by Trading Standards and local councils in relation to counterfeit goods. She also specialises in prosecutions brought by the Post Office against their employees.  Amy also deals with any subsequent confiscation proceedings and can advise on the transfer of confiscation proceedings to Richard Nelson Solicitors.

Amy also has general litigation experience and has assisted other fee earners with professional disciplinary matters.

She is a member of the National Junior Lawyers Division and the Middle Temple and was awarded the Jules Thorn Scholarship in 2006 for her training at the Bar.

Firoz Dawood

Firoz trained as a Barrister at the Inns of Court in London before being called to the Bar in 2003. In 2007, he obtained dual qualification as a solicitor.

Firoz is a specialist criminal defence advocate. He has defended against a wide variety of allegations including serious fraud, terrorism, murder and road traffic matters. In addition, Firoz has obtained the duty solicitor’s qualification and is a very experienced police station advisor. He is also is a member of the VHCC panel.

Firoz is a member of the Law society and Grays Inn.

Duncan Finlyson

Duncan joined Richard Nelson Business Defence Solicitors in June 2008, having previously been in Professional Ethics at the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

He manages the Birmingham office and has considerable experience in the areas of professional conduct, practice management, diversity and IT.

Duncan qualified as a solicitor in 1981 and worked in private practice until 1990 when he joined newly formed legal network LawNet, becoming Managing Director in 1995. Prior to joining the Law Society in 2001, he was Legal Services Director for a web-based IT company and ran his own legal management consultancy.

In 2005 he took over responsibility for running the Solicitors’ Assistance Scheme (SAS) which he continues to administer. Duncan has written a book on Conveyancing and the Law Society’s Delivering Diversity CD.

Debbie Gormley

Debbie began her legal career in 1992 and joined RNS as a senior legal advisor in 2005.

She specialises in contentious fraud and regulatory cases, representing clients facing investigations and proceedings brought by the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC, DTI, Police and other Professional and Regulatory bodies.

She has experience in a wide range of criminal and professional regulatory matters including large scale money laundering, conspiracy to defraud, fraudulent trading, confiscation and restraint proceedings, Trading Standards and Health and Safety investigations and prosecutions.

Sarah Hunt

Sarah has dealt with serious and very high cost cases for a number of years and has worked with several firms including Glaisyers in Birmingham and Pannones in Manchester.

She joined the firm in 2007 as a senior legal advisor.

Her specialisms include asset recovery, restraint proceedings, confiscation and money laundering and she has been in the defence of serious and complex cases brought by the SFO, HMRC, BERR (formerly DTI) and Trading Standards.

Among her recent cases have been a number of multi-milion pound "carousel" frauds and she has been involved in successful applications for abuse of process in cases prosecuted by BERR and HMRC.

Raheema Jamal

Raheema completed her law degree at Southampton University and the Legal Practice Course at Cardiff Law School. She trained in a leading law practice in Wales and qualified as a Solicitor on 1st March 2006.

Prior to commencing her training contract, Raheema lived and worked in Sydney for a year, where she worked in the legal team of a multi-national tobacco company on a high profile litigation case and in two top tier law firms.

Raheema has experience in defending criminal cases in the Crown Court and specialises in defending serious fraud cases, including Very High Cost Cases.

Raheema is a member of the Law Society and is based at the Cardiff office.

Charlotte Knight

Charlotte trained in the East Midlands and qualified as a Solicitor on 15th February 2001.

She has experience in defending a variety of criminal cases including serious and organised criminal matters. Charlotte joined the firm in April 2005. Charlotte is a Higher Rights Advocate.

Charlotte specialises in defending fraud cases prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office and other regulatory bodies. She has expertise in defending cases from the police station through to trial.

Charlotte is a member of the Law Society.

Deborah Nicholson

Deborah completed her law degree in 2002 and then went on to study for an LLM in Healthcare Law in 2002-03. She completed her Legal Practice Course in 2004 at Nottingham Law School.

Deborah worked in the multi-track team for a leading Northwest PI/Clinical Negligence firm before accepting a position with the General Medical Council in 2005. Here she was based in the Fitness to Practice Directorate and gained experience in regulatory prosecutions for convictions, determinations, performance, health and misconduct matters. This included High Court appeal work and judicial review proceedings.

More recently Deborah has been instructed in RFU disciplinary proceedings and advised clubs on best practice. Deborah has also worked with UK Sport and has experience in anti-doping.

She is a senior legal advisor based in the Nottingham office.

Piers Rankin

Piers qualified as a solicitor in February 2008, having trained at Wainwright & Cummins in London.

Piers’ criminal litigation experience includes matters involving conspiracy to defraud, money laundering, duty evasion, counterfeiting, murder and sexual offences.

He has defended cases brought by a variety of agencies including Special Casework Units of the CPS, the SFO, HM Revenue and Customs and private prosecutions by FACT for copyright infringement. Piers also has experience of acting for company directors facing directors disqualification proceedings as well as allegations of fraud arising out of their management of a business. He is a VHCC approved litigator.

Prior to studying law, Piers studied History at the University of Bristol. He is a committee member of Young Legal Aid Lawyers and a member of Justice and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association.

Anneka Rehman

Anneka completed her law degree in Nottingham after which she studied the Legal Practice Course at Nottingham Law School.

Following her legal studies she then gained valuable employment law experience at both Weightmans and Thompsons Solicitors, working as an Employment Law Paralegal and Litigation Assistant.

Anneka joined RNS in 2009 as a legal assistant, and is based in the Nottingham office.

During her time at Richard Nelsons, Anneka has supported fee earners in a variety of departments. She has assisted in the preparation of registration, professional disciplinary and fitness to practise cases before different regulatory bodies, including the General Medical and General Optical Councils. Anneka has also gained experience in general civil litigation matters as well as employment law. In order to develop her knowledge of marketing, Anneka is currently studying for an Introductory Certificate in Marketing.

Steve Roberts

Steve completed his Law degree and LPC at Cardiff University. He trained with a general criminal firm based in South Wales before qualifying on 1st June 2005, where he continued to specialise in criminal law.

Steve has experience of dealing with all aspects of the criminal process, from defending clients in the police station, through to the Magistrates and Crown Court.

Steve has also taken a number of Road Traffic cases to the Court of Appeal. He has a reputation as a strong and versatile advocate. Steve joined the firm in January 2007.

He is a member of the Law Society.

Nicola Roe

Nicola completed her law degree at Leicester University and her legal practice course in Nottingham. She trained at Gateley Wareing solicitors and qualified as a solicitor on 15th September 2005.

Nicola joined Richard Nelson Solicitors in 2007.

Nicola is a key member of the Employment Department and has experience in both contentious and non contentious matters. In particular she deals with negotiating compromise agreements, unfair and wrongful dismissal claims, claims for discrimination and breach of contract matters. She has a particular interest in breaches of restrictive convenants.

She is a member of the Law Society and the Association of Employment Solicitors.

Teresa Rosley

Teresa Rosley trained with Spicer and Pegler Chartered Accountants in Nottingham where her interest in SMEs developed while working with a wide variety of clients ranging from stockbrokers to farmers and lace manufacturers to wine merchants.

Teresa has over 15 years experience managing solicitors accounts and legal practices and has worked as an accountant in many environments including an advertising agency and as bursar in a preparatory school.

Teresa is the practice manager.

Oliver Sainter

Oliver completed his Law Degree at the University of Warwick before undertaking the Bar Vocational Course at Nottingham Law School. He was called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn in 2009.

Oliver joined Richard Nelson as a legal assistant in the same year and is based at the Cardiff office.

He is principally involved with road traffic law and the Criminal Practise Group, and is gaining further advocacy experience through his work with the Free Representation Unit.

Shorof Uddin

Shorof is a solicitor who joined RNS in November 2009. He graduated in law at Cambridge University in 1996 and obtained his MA in 2000. He has qualifications in financial services, accounts and auditing, and received the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) award in 2002.

Shorof previously worked in Forensic Investigations at the SRA for 7 years and appeared on many occasions before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the Master of the Rolls to give evidence.

Shorof advises on all aspects of disciplinary proceedings and investigations including in relation to practising certificates, intervention proceedings, the SDT and appeals to the High Court.

Shorof has acted for financial advisers and accountants, has experience of the Financial Services Authority and has worked on cases involving allegations of dishonesty, fraud and money laundering. Shorof, as with all our solicitors, accepts cases from across the country.

Kate Webster

In 2007, Kate completed her law degree at the University of Sheffield and went on to study her Legal Practice Course at Nottingham Law School. She joined Richard Nelson Solicitors as a legal assistant in 2009 and is based in the Nottingham office.

Prior to her completing the Legal Course Practice, Kate spent a year working for Nottinghamshire Community Health where she gained a valuable insight into the working practices of a busy public body.

Kate has an interest in Marketing and she is currently studying for her Chartered Institute of Marketing Professional Certificate.