Merton Lawyers' Association

Riya read Law at Merton College, Oxford University. She graduated with a BA Jurisprudence in 2020 and completed the BCL in 2021. After being called to the Bar in 2022, Riya went on to complete pupillage at Field Court Tax Chambers, where she joined as a tenant in September 2023.

Adrian read Law at Merton between 2017 and 2020 under the auspices of Jennifer Payne and Mindy Chen-Wishart. Now an associate in the tax department at Slaughter and May, he also sits on the Merton Society Committee and the Whittington Committee of the City of London Solicitors’ Company. 

Susie is a partner and Head of Pensions at Travers Smith LLP, where she has worked since 2004. She advises trustees, employers and insurers on all issues affecting pension schemes, including both advisory work and advising on transactions to insure (or buy out) pension scheme liabilities with an insurer. Susie studied law when she was at Merton.  Before joining Travers Smith LLP, she trained and worked at Allen & Overy LLP.

Steven Elliott KC matriculated at Merton College in 1997 and, with the support of a Commonwealth Scholarship, gained a DPhil in law. Steven then went to the Bar, becoming a member of One Essex Court in London, out of which he continues to practice commercial law. Steven is the general editor of Snell’s Equity and author of The Law of Recission.

Toby studied Jurisprudence and rowed (winning Blades), as well as playing rugby and cricket for the college. He was also JCR Treasurer. He joined Linklaters in 1998, becoming a partner in 2009. Toby currently heads Linklaters’ Corporate & Structured Lending team. He is a relationship partner for several of Linklaters’ major clients and also sits on their Partnership Board. He is married with five children.

Niamh studied law at Merton between 2016 and 2019, followed by the BCL. She joined Serle Court Chambers in October 2022. Her practice covers the whole range of Commercial and Chancery work, with a particular focus on private client work and intellectual property.

Philippa Hopkins KC (Howells) (1989) read Jurisprudence as an undergraduate, followed by the BCL, and then taught at Merton as a law lecturer whilst studying for the Bar exams.  She has been a tenant at Essex Court Chambers since 1994, and took silk in 2018.  Her practice covers a wide range of commercial disputes. She and her husband Eddie, also a Mertonian, have three sons aged between 11 and 22.

Naomi studied law at Merton, matriculating in 1985, and qualified as a solicitor in 1992 with Clifford Chance. Initially a corporate lawyer, she now focuses on transport as a Projects and Energy Transition Partner at Ashurst. Ranked as one of the most influential female lawyers by IFLR, Naomi appears in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame and the Lawyer’s Hot 100. Naomi lives in Kent with her husband and has three children.

Isadora read Law at Merton College. She graduated with a BA Jurisprudence in 2020 and completed the BCL in 2021. She joined Sullivan & Cromwell as a trainee solicitor in 2022 and qualified into their Tax team in August 2024.

Jessica Kemp is a partner in the White & Case global Tax practice based in London and an international tax expert who advises on the most complex cross border transactions across a full range of taxes. Jessica served as the first female president of the (AIJA) Tax Law Commission and an officer of the Taxes Committee of the IBA and a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Taxation. Her work has been published by AIJA, the IBFD and the Tax Journal, the International Tax Review and Thomson Reuters Corporate Finance. She previously worked in Malawi defending prisoners on death row and those accused of capital crimes.

Ben Perry is an English solicitor and New York attorney-at-law who is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C), where he has worked since 2000. He advises on a wide range of transactions, in particular cross-border mergers and acquisitions and private equity, both of which he is ranked for in the legal directories. He also developed the trainee solicitor programme at S&C, twice winning an award for best training principal in the country, and is heavily involved in the wider legal profession as a past or present member of several committees of the City of London Law Society.

Katherine is a barrister at Essex Court Chambers, ranked in Legal 500 as a Rising Star, with a broad practice spanning commercial litigation and international arbitration. Her commercial litigation practice is focused specifically on civil fraud, financial litigation, and professional negligence. Katherine is also regularly instructed in investor state arbitrations across a wide variety of sectors involving an array of issues ranging from taxation to fair competition to environmental protection.

Dan chairs the Merton Lawyers' Association committee. He came to Merton to read for the BCL in 1986. He is a partner at Slaughter and May specialising in pensions law - advisory, litigation and transactions. Dan does some Trusts teaching at Merton and judges the second year mooting. He helped organise the MLA annual event in 2019, 2022 and 2023. Dan is married, has three sons and lives in London. He is a keen road cyclist and open water swimmer.

Alice studied Law at Merton from 2015 to 2018, before completing an LLM in European and International Human Rights Law at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. She was called to the bar in 2022 and is currently completing pupillage at the Government Legal Department, with a focus on Public and Administrative Law.

A 1990 BCL-ist, Charlie is a partner and International General Counsel at Dechert and chairs its London pro bono committee. Formerly a fee paid employment judge and deputy chair of the Central Arbitration Committee, he is a CEDR accredited mediator, FRSA, a member of the Board of JUSTICE, a Trustee of Walworth Garden, and author of The Law of TUPE Transfers (Oxford University Press, 3rd Edn) and was awarded a PhD by his other alma mater, Bristol University, in 2022.