Top lawyers celebrate 100 years of service at Southampton law firm
Five lawyers at Blake Morgan’s Southampton office are celebrating a combined 100 years of service – marked by a presentation of long service awards on 30 September. Eighty years of these 100 reflect the exceptional careers of longstanding partners at the firm, Simon Burge and Richard Portlock.
Both Simon and Richard began their careers at law firms that, through a series of mergers over the decades since, have evolved to become Blake Morgan. Simon joined the firm (then Faithfull & Bowker) in September 1985 as an assistant solicitor, before qualifying as a solicitor a month later. He became partner in 1989 – at the relatively young age of 28.
Simon began practicing in a variety of contentious areas, including crime, personal injury, commercial litigation, and family law, before specialising in high net worth family cases. He currently heads up the Family Practice Group at Blake Morgan, which is one of the largest teams of family lawyers in the South of England.
Alongside his role at Blake Morgan, he was appointed HM Deputy Coroner for Central Hampshire in the 1990s and has presided over thousands of inquests in the county in that capacity. After 40 years of service, Simon will retire from his role at Blake Morgan at the end of 2025, while continuing his part-time work outside the firm as a coroner.
Meanwhile, Richard also started at another of the firm’s predecessors, Blake Lapthorn, in September 1985 as an articled clerk, after graduating from the University of Wales in Cardiff. He qualified as a solicitor in 1987 and quickly rose up the ranks and became a partner in 1993.
Richard has long specialised in civil litigation, having initially cut his teeth in criminal advocacy and family law work. He has handled professional liability cases for defendants and claimants, commercial litigation and occupational pension scheme disputes. In recent years, he has acted in a number of high profile and complex public law cases in the health sector.
Three other lawyers received awards for their combined 20 years at Blake Morgan. Senior litigation paralegal Ashley Coster was recognised for his decade of service, specialising in commercial recoveries. Associate Katie Newham and litigation paralegal Sarah Athwal also received awards for their five years at the firm.
To mark the impressive professional and personal milestone reached by Simon and Richard, Blake Morgan held a long service awards ceremony its Southampton office, where Managing Partner, Mike Wilson gave a speech highlighting the firm’s gratitude for their significant contributions over the years.
Mike Wilson, Managing Partner at Blake Morgan, said:
It is a wonderful achievement to be able to mark a combined century of service at the firm’s Southampton office. We’re immensely proud of the hard work and commitment that our colleagues at Blake Morgan put in for each other and their clients on a daily basis, and I would like to extend my congratulations to Simon Burge, Richard Portlock, Ashley Coster, Katie Newham, and Sarah Athwal.
In particular, it’s a privilege to be able to recognise Simon and Richard – whose respective forty years of service are an incredible achievement. In September 1985, the same month that the first mobile telephone call was made in the UK and David Bowie was topping the charts, Simon and Richard joined the firm. Times have changed since then, and the firm has evolved with it, so it is a testament to their exceptional work and connections they’ve built here that they’ve remained such lynchpins of the firm over the decades since.
I’d like to take this opportunity to say a very special thank you from all of us at Blake Morgan to them both.
Long service awards: Richard Portlock (left) and Simon Burge cutting the cake during the celebrations.
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