19/01/2024
National law firm Bevan Brittan has begun 2024 with another senior addition to its expanding energy and resource management team, recruiting its latest specialist in Birmingham.
Sarah Innes is the latest new recruit, joining as a Legal Director from Bexley Beaumont. She brings more than 20 years of experience to Bevan Brittan’s energy and resource management team, including her track record of advising on high-value complex infrastructure projects.
She also spent two years as senior legal counsel to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and has held senior roles at her previous firms including Gunnercooke and Clifford Chance.
The news continues the momentum built by the firm in 2023, in which it opened a new Birmingham office to support its growth and significantly expanded its energy team, welcoming a trio of new joiners in the run-up to Christmas.
Sarah is the latest addition to boost Bevan Brittan’s energy offering. Its pre-Christmas new starters included solicitor Ricardo Johnson who also joined the firm’s 100-strong Birmingham team in its new City Centre office in Church Street.
A further reinforcement to the team came as former trainee Natalie Cernuschi qualified as a solicitor at the turn of the year and has now joined the energy practice on a permanent basis.
The continued positive news was welcomed by partner Nadeem Arshad, head of the firm’s energy and resource management team, who said the additional experience that Sarah and other joiners bring will be invaluable to support the increased levels of instructions from both private and public sector clients needing expert advice to help them deliver net zero and other energy strategies.
He said: “Energy and decarbonisation projects of all sizes and scales will be at the forefront of all organisations’ strategies for the next few decades and we are certainly seeing a very significant increase in the number of public and private sector leadership teams seeking our advice.
“Sarah brings valuable experience of higher value complex projects which will add important breadth and depth to the experience we already have in a wide range of energy issues in our team, which now numbers more than 50 people.
“The amount of work we will be doing for clients will increase in 2024 and much further beyond that. Whether they are developers, investors, funders, utilities, corporate businesses or public sector bodies, net zero and energy issues will be core to every organisation’s planning.
“That will mean further growth opportunities for the team and further hires to meet increasing client requests for advice in both established markets like EV charging infrastructure, solar and battery, district heating networks and energy from waste, as well as in new sectors such as hydrogen and carbon capture.”
The Bevan Brittan team supports clients throughout the lifecycle of energy projects, from assessment and feasibility through to construction, operation and also to decommissioning, working from its four offices across the UK in Bristol, Leeds and London as well as Birmingham.
Recent major projects the team have advised on include innovative district heat network developments which will provide low carbon energy to hundreds of new homes.
Learn more about our Energy and Resource Management work.
