Tel: 0191 273 3817
Michael graduated in 2003 with first class honours in law, winning a prestigious award for outstanding work in the field of intellectual property, and obtaining a then unprecedented mark for his dissertation along the way. He went on to train with a large firm in the North West before joining Gibson & Co. in May 2005 and qualifying as a solicitor later that year.
In recent years Michael has conducted a huge range of complex contentious matters, often involving an international element. Recent highlights include acting:-
- As part of a team of lawyers in defending three inter-related derivatives actions with a total value of over £500m
- On an international arbitration involving a Russian oil company
- In the successful defence of a tax investigation by HMRC in which it sought recovery of in excess of £2m and sanctions against individual directors
- For Swedish venture capitalists in recovering damages for breach of contract concerning a patent
- In a leading proprietary estoppel case
Michael was made a partner in 2012. Legal 500’s 2017 edition praises him as “commercially savvy” and he was made a Leading Individual in 2024.
Michael’s practice encompasses the giving of advice on all manner of commercial issues including commercial agreements, land and other real property, intellectual property, landlord and tenant, libel/defamation, construction, partnership, shareholder issues, licensing, contentious probate, planning, and banking.
As someone always keen to expand and build on his range of expertise, Michael is an experienced advocate, appearing frequently in the High Court and County Courts. In 2012 Michael gained his higher rights of audience from the College of Law in London, making him a Solicitor-Advocate, and entitling him to represent his clients as an advocate in every civil court in the country.
Michael has served on the Newcastle Law Society Committee since 2015, serving also as Chairman of the Education Sub-Committee. In March 2016 he was made Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Civil Litigation.
Away from work Michael is married and lives with his wife Angela, son James and daughter Sophie by the coast in South Shields. His main interests are current affairs, history, politics, sailing, music, Italian food and the ever fluctuating fortunes of Sunderland AFC.
