Wotton + Kearney is delighted to announce 13 senior promotions in Australia and New Zealand, including four new partners effective 1 July 2020. The latest promotions take the firm’s numbers to 41 partners and more than 200 dedicated insurance lawyers, with 55% of these being female.
The firm’s Australian financial lines senior team is being strengthened with the appointment of new partners Charu Stevenson, Dean Pinto and Robert Finnigan (and Property) in Sydney, while the national general liability team welcomes Scott Macoun as partner in Brisbane. Complementing these promotions is the hire of special counsel Grant Covington who joins the firm in July. Grant brings 20 years of insurance industry experience and specialises in financial lines and financial institutions claims and advice.
Chief Executive Partner David Kearney said: “These promotions reflect Wotton + Kearney’s ability to offer our clients deeper expertise by growing our ranks of senior specialists in key insurance lines. We are delighted to welcome Charu, Dean, Robert and Scott as partners and congratulate all our new senior lawyers on their well-deserved promotions – recognition of their talents and continued commitment to their clients. I am also pleased to welcome Grant to the firm.”
The full list of promoted senior lawyers is:
Partners
Charu Stevenson – Financial Lines (Sydney)
Charu is an experienced financial lines coverage and defence practitioner. She has advised and represented local, global and London-market insurers and their insureds in directors & officers and management liability, professional indemnity, environmental liability, construction and fidelity claims.
Dean Pinto – Financial Lines (Sydney)
Dean specialises in financial lines products with a focus on directors & officers, professional indemnity and coverage in the London and Australian markets. He has worked on complex shareholder class actions, regulatory investigations by ASIC and the AFP, and financial services remediation schemes.
Robert Finnigan – Financial Lines & Property + Energy (Sydney)
Robert has extensive experience across the construction industry managing first party property, energy, construction risk and defence of liability claims for construction professionals. He acts for domestic and international insurers, as well as major corporations, engineers, architects and quantity surveyors. Robert also has a niche specialism in managing a range of defamation claims.
Scott Macoun – General Liability (Brisbane)
Scott is a general liability insurance litigator focused on PIPA claims, coronial and workplace health and safety investigations and prosecutions, as well as engineering/construction professional complaints and regulatory matters. He acts for insurers, London market underwriters, TPAs and self-insureds across the range of claims, including multi-million-dollar catastrophic injury claims.
Special Counsel
- Andrew Moore – Property (Auckland)
- Ronald Mok – Financial Lines (Brisbane)
- Thomas Cavanagh – Financial Lines (Sydney)
Senior Associate
- Alison Cupples – Financial Lines (Auckland)
- Matt O’Donnell – Financial Lines (Brisbane)
- Alycia Amanatidis – Financial Lines (Melbourne)
- Chris Knight – Financial Lines (Sydney)
- Tim Holmes – Property + Energy (Sydney)
- Sarah Mellowes – Financial Lines (Sydney)