Nicholas Woo

Partner @Birketts LLP

Ipswich, GB

I married in and my new wife wanted to build a life in the country. We both had no ties to Suffolk except that my former mentor, Jonathan, lived there. We moved from Central London to Suffolk in Birketts handled the property transaction. I commuted to London for 4 years while I was at Richards Butler, but with a new baby (born 2001), the minimum 4 hour return journey became too much. Always relishing a challenge, I approached Birketts and asked if they would be interested in helping me build a shipping practice outside of London. The then CEO of Birketts, Alistair Lang, was a former banker. By the turn of the 20th century, Internet and mobile technology was improving by leaps and bounds. It was no longer an issue to work from a location that was not in London and yet carry out \"London\" work. As a commercial man, Alistair understood this very well. We agreed that there was an attraction in providing a \"City level service\" but with the lower costs base outside London, charging a \"non-City level price\". When I joined the shipping team at Birketts as a partner in 2004, there was one senior consultant and one part-time assistant on the team, When I handed over my role as head of the shipping team to younger partners in June 2020, the shipping team had grown to 3 equity partners (including myself) and 10 assistants of varying levels of seniority serving clients all over the world but mainly in Europe, Middle East, India and the Far East.With age and experience (and again relishing a fresh challenge), I have decided to build a shipping mediation practice to complement my existing shipping litigation practice. I qualified as a CEDR accredited mediator in October 2019.

Inns of Court School of Law

Bar

University of Buckingham

Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.)

Legal Professional Course (Singapore)

Advocate & Solicitor