Meet the Team
Pascale Wood-Atkins
Senior Partner
Head of Company/Commercial Department
Pascale studied law at Lancaster University where she gained a 2:1 and then trained in the City of London. She qualified as a solicitor in 1988, and then leaving private practice she worked in-house for Diageo plc for over nine years, as the lawyer to the famous brewing company Guinness. She covered UK, Europe and parts of Middle East and Africa.
She has extensive experience in commercial law including Advertising and Marketing, IT, and in Intellectual Property matters such as trade marks and copyright law. She advises businesses on Company Law at all stages of their development, including start-ups, buying and selling and insolvency, all combining to provide a truly unique range of services.
She explains, “As in-house lawyer for Guinness, I acted in a commercial setting and soon realised how important it is to give practical commercial advice that is short, to the point but accurate."
Contact Pascale Wood-Atkins:
e-mail: pascale@woodatkins.com
Gillian Rolls
Consultant to the firm
Gillian is a graduate in law from University College, London and has specialised in employment law since 1985, with particular expertise in dispute resolution and preparing and presenting cases in the Employment Tribunal. She has notable success in defending Tribunal complaints and/or negotiating cost-effective solutions. She has wide-ranging experience, dealing with all types of discrimination issues, unfair and constructive dismissal, breach of contract, health and safety considerations, unlawful deduction from wages and TUPE problems. Gillian is used as a source of referral by other HR Consultants and Solicitors’ firms who do not have specialists in this ever-changing area of law. She has also lectured at Oxford Brookes University on its IPD Diploma in Personnel Management and Masters in Employment Law courses, as well as speaking on public courses and conferences. She has contributed to Croners CCH Editions Personnel Management updates and writes for a number of other publications. She is a registered consultant on the National Business Link Consultants’ Register and operates under a Bar Direct Licence enabling access to specialist barristers if required.
For a Referral to Gillian Rolls:
Contact: enquiries@woodatkins.com
Kevin Horton
Legal Services Director
Kevin has worked in the commercial legal services field, managing departments in both private practice and in-house, for very nearly 30 years. During this time he has gained a wealth of experience working at Director level in both contentious and non contentious work.
More recently, Kevin has also spent several years engaged in consultancy work that has given him a true empathy with business people across the board and ranging from a large multi-national corporation to small owner managed businesses.
During this time Kevin has advised and worked on projects varying from worldwide distribution and licensing agreements for a French design house to legal documentation for the acquisition, by a US corporation, of a UK based mini submersible company.
Esmé Palin
Debt Recovery Manager of Collect-A-Debt
Esmé Palin studied at the University West of England, Bristol gaining a BA Hons in Equine Business Management. She then went on to specialise in PR and Marketing before joining Wood-Atkins Commercial Law where she now manages Collect-A-Debt, a separate debt recovery department on behalf of the firm.
