Areas of practice:

Leigh qualified as a solicitor in 1994. Leigh advises on a wide range of pensions issues.  She has extensive experience of working with trustees and pension scheme employers through proposals to amend, close, wind-up and merge their schemes.

Recent experience includes:

• Leading the advice team on a £90m buy-in (ready for conversion to buy-out) leading to the scheme's early exit from a Pension Protection Fund assessment period.
• Advising a group holding company in the context of a sale of an overseas division including negotiating guarantee terms with the trustees of two pension schemes to mitigate the impact of the sale and associated dividend payments.
• Advising in relation to allocation of assets on wind-up following exit from an assessment period and within a buy-in contract environment.

Leigh is a director of Wrigleys Pensions Trustees Limited, a subsidiary company of the firm which is available to act as a corporate trustee to occupational pension schemes.

Leigh has spoken at seminars on a range of pensions issues.  She presented a paper on ill health pension problems at the annual conference of the Association of Pension Lawyers and has chaired the conference.  She addressed the Association of Consulting Actuaries 'current issues in pensions' conference on legal aspects of scheme funding and she has addressed the Charity Law Association conference on pension issues.

Testimonials:

"experienced and approachable" (Chambers & Partners)

"a fantastic communicator who is pleasant to deal with" (Chambers & Partners)

Professional memberships:

Association of Pension Lawyers
Former committee member of NE Regional Group of the Pensions Management Institute
Corporate membership of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association

Publications:

Contributor of conference materials for the Association of Pension Lawyers and co-author of Tolley's "Pensions Law" (chapters on the pensions aspects of corporate transactions and on pension scheme documentation)