Yorkshire Legal Awards 2020: Meet the judges

The independent judging panel for the Yorkshire Legal Awards lends its time and expertise to award the most prestigious legal honours in the region

The awards are judged by a prestigious independent panel made up of experts from across the Yorkshire legal community. Representatives from the region’s leading societies, business groups and local public bodies lend their expertise and experience to assess hundreds of written and video entries, and decide who should be recognised as Yorkshire’s leading legal lights. The panel is reconstituted every year to ensure variety in views and backgrounds, and is bound by confidentiality and conflict of interest requirements to ensure its integrity and independence.

Nicholas Emmerson

Leeds Law Society

Nicholas Emmerson deputy president of Leeds Law Society and represents Leeds on the Council of the Law Society of England and Wales. A partner at Gateley Legal, he is a corporate lawyer and specialises in advising both public and private companies on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and equity capital markets. He acts for a wide range of corporate clients, from Yorkshire to the US to Northeast Asia.

Charlotte Parkinson

Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society of England and Wales

Charlotte Parkinson is the current chair of the Junior Lawyers Division of the Law Society of England and Wales, representing the interests of junior lawyers in the legal profession. She is also a past chair of Leeds Junior Lawyers Division. Charlotte graduated from the University of Huddersfield’s Masters of Law and Practice course in 2013 and is now an associate in the litigation team at Addleshaw Goddard in Leeds.