Eight Keystone lawyers have been recognised in the Spear’s legal index for 2024 for their expertise and experience in art, aviation and yachts, corporate, employment, and immigration.

Lisette Aguilar has been ranked as a ‘Top Recommended’ art lawyer for high-net-worth individuals in the UK, while Ilona Avrakmenko is a ‘Recommended’ aviation and yachts lawyer. Fara Mohammad is listed as a ‘Recommended’ corporate lawyer. Alistair French, Clive Howard and Helen Sherborne are named as ‘Top Recommended’ and Richard Fox as ‘Recommended’ employment lawyers for senior executives, wealth managers and family offices. Sharmila Mehta received recognition as a  ‘Recommended’ immigration lawyer.

The esteemed rankings are drawn up based on peer nominations, client feedback, telephone and face-to-face interviews, data supplied by firms, as well as information gathered by the Spear’s editorial and research teams.

Art

Lisette Aguilar

Lisette specialises in art-related disputes and transactions, having extensive experience handling issues arising from questions of authenticity and attribution, provenance and ownership, World War II restitution, cultural property claims, export, loss and damage, and copyright, both in Europe and Asia. Lisette previously worked for 12 years as associate general counsel and senior director at Sotheby’s.

Read Lisette’s Spear’s profile here.

Aviation and Yachts

Ilona Avramenko

Headshot of Ilona Avramenko looking directly into the camera

Ilona is an aviation and superyacht law expert. Her practice involves advising ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices, companies, and banks on a range of yachting and aviation matters. This includes all manner of transactional and advisory work including sale and purchase, construction/refit, leasing and asset financing. Ilona also advises on ownership structures, registration, and VAT/importation of yachts and aircrafts.

Read Ilona’s Spear’s profile here.

Corporate 

Fara Mohammad 

Head shot of Fara Mohammad looking into camera

Fara is a specialist adviser to international companies and individuals on their inward investments into the UK, Europe and MEA. She advises businesses, funds and private clients on the financing of their investments and often acts as external general counsel for all legal aspects related to the investment.

Read Fara’s Spear’s profile here.

Employment

Alistair French

Head shot of Alistair French looking into camera

Alistair frequently advises senior executives in disputes with banks, hedge funds, asset managers, private equity houses and insurers. He also advises employers in a broad range of sectors on a broad spectrum of workplace matters. Primarily his work for business is non-contentious: drafting and advising on contracts and policies, and putting in place structures to avoid Tribunal.

Read Alistair’s Spear’s profile here.

Clive Howard

Clive is an expert in contentious exits, whistleblowing and discrimination claims. He has advised on numerous high-profile cases, including acting for senior figures in the financial and public sectors. He advised Paul Moore, the famous HBOS whistleblower, in his legal battle with the high-street giant. This resulted in the bank settling and led to interventions from the then prime minister, Gordon Brown.

Read Clive’s Spear’s profile here.

Helen Sherborne

Helen is an experienced employment lawyer advising clients on both contentious and non-contentious issues. Her clients include large city corporations and banks as well as executives such as CEOs, board directors, heads of film studios, and television producers. She has represented clients against Harvey Weinstein and the Weinstein Corporation for more than five years in the UK and the US.

Read Helen’s Spear’s profile here.

Richard Fox

Richard has over 25 years’ experience representing employers and employees on a broad range of employment issues. He advises clients on matters including confidentiality and restrictive covenants, executive pay, bonus and severance arrangements, unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistleblowing and redundancy programmes.

He has conducted and advised on investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace following the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the cases that have followed.

Read Richard’s Spear’s profile here.

Immigration 

Sharmila Mehta

Sharmila is a specialist in UK-inward Immigration Law and British Nationality and has advised prominent international families, Middle Eastern royalty, celebrities and global companies. She is adept at assisting on the complexities of all manner of entry routes and has worked closely with senior officials at the Home Office on many sensitive cases and policy issues.

Read Sharmila’s Spear’s profile here.

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