The travel and aviation team at law firm Kemp Little, led by partner Farina Azam, is joining Deloitte as part of a wider deal which will see 80 lawyers move to the firm.
A total of 114 employees from Kemp Little will join Deloitte Legal, including 29 partners – doubling the lawyer headcount to more than 170 in the UK.
As well as travel and aviation, Kemp Little has experts in commercial technology, corporate, employment, data protection, disputes, IP and financial regulation across a range of sectors including financial services, telecoms, and media and digital solutions.
Alistair Pritchard, lead partner for travel and aviation at Deloitte, said: “I’m absolutely delighted that this transaction brings a fantastic travel and aviation legal team into Deloitte, led by Farina Azam.
“Farina is extremely well respected across the travel industry and her expertise and relationships will be a significant addition to our practice. I’ve known Farina for a long time and am really looking forward to working with her. Her team will complement our existing legal aviation team which focusses on airlines, aircraft leasing and maintenance contracts.”
Azam becomes a partner at Deloitte Legal. She said: “Deloitte already has an extremely knowledgeable and well-respected travel and aviation team, and I’m delighted to be able to add our team’s travel and technology legal expertise to this and offer what I believe is a truly unique, multi-disciplinary service to the travel industry.
“With our combined expertise, Deloitte is extremely well placed to assist the travel and aviation industry through this incredibly challenging time and beyond.”
Deloitte Legal now has more than 370 employees in the UK, with 170 lawyers specialising in areas such as employment, litigation, corporate, commercial, IP and technology, regulatory compliance and immigration.
Globally, Deloitte Legal currently has about 2,500 professionals operating in more than 80 countries.
Michael Castle, managing partner for Deloitte Legal in the UK, said: “This transaction is transformative for Deloitte Legal. Overnight, we have doubled our lawyer headcount in the UK but, more importantly, the depth of talent in the Kemp Little team and the quality of their innovative legal tech products allow us to provide clients with an even broader and deeper range of legal expertise to complement existing services in advisory, technology, consultancy and managed services. We are now offering truly end-to-end professional and legal services to our clients.”