Ashtons announce raft of new internal appointments

Ashtons Legal is delighted to announce the appointments of 13 staff to partners, senior associates and associates from a range of disciplines within the firm.

Emma Clifton, Grace Canham, Kimberly King and Rebecca Dixon are now associates, Gino Ballestracci, Jennifer Valentine and Kate Palombo are now senior associates, and Ben Hallatt, Craig Fiddaman, Joanna Baker, Luke Hurst, Rhian Brook and Tim Burrows are new partners with the firm.

All those listed have completed Ashtons’ internal leadership programmes.

For the first time in the firm’s history, three of the new partners have key roles in Ashtons’ management team and do not deliver legal services. Ben Hallatt is Ashtons’ Chief Operating Officer, Luke Hurst is Chief Information Officer and Tim Burrows is Chief Financial Officer.

Craig Fiddaman works in the firm’s corporate team, Joanna Baker is a disputes lawyer specialising in contentious probate matters and Rhian Brook works in commercial property. Rhian joined the firm as a trainee solicitor and has developed her legal career within Ashtons. Joanna also started her career with Ashtons in 1997 and is a proud example of a senior lawyer who took a non-traditional route to training and qualification – she first joined the firm as a litigation executive after completing her A-Levels and subsequently qualified as a Chartered Legal Executive in 2006 and became a member of the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists in 2022.

Senior associate Gino Ballestracci works alongside Joanna Baker in contentious probate and is also a Member of CILEx. Jennifer Valentine is a solicitor working in the lifetime planning team and Kate Palombo is a project manager and works on business improvement and transformation across the business.

Emma Clifton is Ashtons’ digital marketing executive, Kimberly King is a commercial property solicitor and both Grace Canham and Rebecca Dixon are solicitors in the lifetime planning team.

These appointments come on the back of the appointment of two additional partners already in 2024 who joined Ashtons from other firms – Nick Palmer and Ayesha Brown.

James Tarling, CEO at Ashtons says: “Congratulations to Ben, Craig, Emma, Gino, Grace, Jennifer, Joanna, Kate, Kimberly, Luke, Rebecca, Rhian and Tim on their richly deserved appointments.”

He adds: “At Ashtons we are proud to be attracting and investing in the development of exceptional people who share our vision and values. We enjoy seeing our colleagues succeed and develop their careers with us delivering fantastic outcomes to our clients. I am excited to work with all of these individuals to grow and develop our business together.”