Our practice has always believed in offering top quality service to our clients and therefore spends a large proportion of its budget on training and attending specialist conferences. Sometimes, we like to bring in further expertise on aspects of our work and so we often use the services of proven professionals in specific fields of expertise. Some of our associated professionals are listed below:
Rob Gaines - Pensions
Rob Gaines has worked in financial services for over 35 years. For 30 of those years he has specialised in pensions and his enthusiasm is undimmed.
Until 2001, he had been in a number of managerial positions with financial services companies including Allied Dunbar, Schroder Life and St. James’s Place. In1988 he published his first book on pensions, The Pensions Factbook (originally Gee, now Wolters Kluwer/CCH), and this became an industry standard textbook which is still in print and being updated.
In 2001 he formed his own business which mainly works in the area of pensions. It offers a technical consultancy to pension providers and advisers and training. Rob has also written further on pensions: Pension Fundamentals (joint author, on line – Pendragon), the pensions chapter of the St. James’s Place Tax Guide, Understanding Pensions (Wolters Kluwer/Croner), Pensions and Retirement Planning (Taxbriefs). He has contributed to a number of other publications and is a frequent speaker on pensions.
Rosemary Cook - Corporate-Commercial Lawyer
Rosemary Cook is a corporate-commercial lawyer who combines 20+ years' experience gained both in private practice with leading international law firms and also in the corporate world, working in-house for a FTSE 100 PLC.
Rosemary's private practice experience is in mergers and acquisitions, private equity investment, commercial contracts and a wide ranging array of other corporate/commercial areas. The practices she has worked in include two of the world's leading law firms: Freshfields (London office) and Freehills (Sydney office), as a senior solicitor in both cases.
Rosemary was a senior international lawyer with National Power PLC (one of the independent electricity generating companies formed on the privatisation of the UK's electricity industry) and, in 2000, became General Counsel at its successor company, International Power plc. Her responsibilities in this role included managing legal services for the company's worldwide portfolio of energy assets and projects.
Rosemary established her own practice, Beechmast Consultancy Limited, in 2009. The firm provides personalised corporate-commercial legal services to a select number of corporate clients, with an emphasis on clear communication and commercially focussed advice.
Helena Luckhurst - Partner at Speechly Bircham
Helena Luckhurst is a lawyer who specialises in helping her clients pass on their wealth, in death or during their lifetimes, in a tax efficient and thoughtful manner. In particular, she advises individuals on using sophisticated Wills, structuring lifetime gifts and setting up trusts, as well as a wide range of family wealth issues, such as incapacity, powers of attorney and Court of Protection work, care fee planning and making provision for disabled family members. She also advises trustees on all aspects of trust work and attorneys on how to perform their duties. Helena's clients comment on her caring attitude and her ability to explain complicated legal and tax issues clearly and in a way that they can relate to. Helena is more than happy to be consulted, to help establish needs and priorities and to help think through problems, before undertaking any work. She is committed to finding practical solutions within budget.
Helena is a partner in the law firm of Speechly Bircham, based in the city of London, and has specialised in this area since her qualification as a lawyer in 2000. Speechly Bircham is a top-ranking law firm for private client work, being one of the largest in London for this type of work and one of the top 7 Private Client law firms in the world according to Chambers Global 2011. Helena has written various articles on issues in her specialism for the national and professional adviser press over the years and is a regular speaker on these topics at financial adviser conferences.
Michael Brooke - Chartered Accountant
Michael Brooke is a director and shareholder in Ross Brooke Limited, one of the larger local firms of chartered accountants.
Michael specialises in helping owner managed businesses achieve their objectives and has guided many local businesses through the ups and downs of business life.
Before forming Ross Brooke in 1994 through a merger with the long established firm of Ross Smith, Michael had worked for a major US multinational before setting out on his own with various start-ups. In 1988 he established his accountancy practice in Newbury where he has been ever since.
