Pictured: (l-r) Jane Byford, Karen Macpherson and Andrew Whitehead

Birmingham and London law firm Martineau has strengthened its employment team with the arrival of new partner Karen Macpherson from DLA Piper. Karen brings a wealth of experience, providing employment advice to multi-jurisdictional businesses as well as to those based just in the UK.

Karen's broad experience includes training at magic circle firm Linklaters, before taking up an in-house role as the sole employment adviser for IBM. Importantly this gives Karen a unique view of employment issues from both sides of the corporate fence and proves invaluable for her understanding of the day-to-day employment issues faced by businesses in the UK. 

Karen said of her appointment: "When you consider Martineau's growing reputation and understand the ambition within the firm, it's an easy move to make. The quality of its lawyers and evident strength-in-depth across the firm is well known, both regionally and nationally. It's a busy team and I look forward to helping the team develop and deliver an even better service to a growing client list - it's a good time to be joining a good firm."

Jane Byford, head of Martineau's employment team was understandably pleased with the appointment: "Karen has a great reputation for her work assisting clients with the full spectrum of employment law issues, but in particular advising large technology companies. The increased levels of work we are witnessing, including change management programmes and outsourcing, makes growing the team my top priority. Our ability to attract lawyers of Karen's calibre, speaks volumes about the reputation we are building as a firm and as a team of employment lawyers."

Senior partner Andrew Whitehead said: "The current economic climate is generating work for employment lawyers and our expertise is attracting a lot of new instructions. Karen is a very welcome addition to the employment  team and the firm as a whole. Her reputation for pragmatic, commercially astute advice is well known and she has a proven business development record."