Managing Partner Stuart Dench and Head of Policyholder Disputes Aaron Le Marquer are featured in The Lawyer’s 2025 edition of its prestigious annual Hot 100 list of “the profession’s movers and shakers”.

Stewarts is one of only a small number of firms to have multiple partners recognised in this year’s Hot 100.

The Lawyer says:

“Members of The Lawyer Hot 100 have just two things in common. The first is excellence. Every year, our Hot 100 covers an incredibly diverse mix of legal professionals… but whatever world they come from, they are all doing amazing work. The second is relevance… talented young guns rub shoulders with eminent lawyers who have years of success behind them. What links those seasoned veterans with those at the start of their careers is that they are all of the present moment. The work they are doing is important NOW.”

Read on for Stuart and Aaron’s biographies in the Hot 100; visit The Lawyer’s website for the full list

 


 

Stuart Dench

Managing Partner Stuart Dench has been busy firing up Stewarts 2.0 in 2024, and he means business. There are no empty words or promises from this managing partner, who is prepared to put his money where his mouth is as he looks to invest in broadening the litigation boutique’s disputes base.

With Dench’s guidance, Stewarts is breaking into new areas, such as arbitration and intellectual property, where it aims to build market-leading practices with true critical mass. Stewarts brought in Norton Rose Fulbright’s former arbitration head, Sherina Petit, to lead its arbitration practice, Eversheds Sutherland’s former tax head, Giles Salmond, to strengthen its VAT expertise, and has also recruited a new head of clinical negligence, in former long-standing Irwin Mitchell partner Anita Jewitt. Additional partner hire announcements are expected throughout 2025.

In a demonstration of confidence in its ability to recruit, Stewarts is also upping its London footprint by 40 per cent to take on an additional 21,000 sq ft of space, the refurbishment of which started this month. The firm will begin another real estate project for its Leeds office in January 2026, envisioning the Leeds and London offices as being virtually identical to anyone walking through Stewarts’ office doors in either city. ESG is also on the agenda; the firm is currently in the process of setting a net zero target. What’s sure is that Dench is and will continue to be instrumental in smoothly leading the firm through these changes, and Stewarts is a firm to watch over the coming years as it rings in a new era.

Aaron Le Marquer

Christmas came early for Stewarts partner and head of policyholder disputes Aaron Le Marquer last year. On 20 December, judgment was handed down in the mammoth case for Le Marquer’s client, London’s ExCel exhibition centre. He not only secured a victory for his client, paving the way for it to claim £16m for damages to its business caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, but also provides a pathway to scores of business looking to do the same. He certainly won’t have received any cards from the likes of Allianz last Christmas, that’s for sure.

Le Marquer has been a frequent name in The Lawyer’s coverage in recent years, having regularly featured in our cornerstone annual litigation lists. The ExCel case featured in both The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases for 2023 and Top 10 appeals in 2024, illustrating the magnitude of this business-critical litigation. He also featured in 2022’s Top 20 Cases. His work for the Stonegate Pub Company (the parent company of various high street names including Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout and Be At One) was included while he was at his previous firm Fenchurch Law. In short, if there’s a blockbuster dispute between a business and its insurer(s) brewing, you can bet that Le Marquer’s phone will be ringing off the hook.

 

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