Elliott will lead dedicated technology team

Oct 22 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

ONE of the region’s best-known solicitors in the field of Intellectual Property (IP) and technology law is joining Crutes to lead a new team.

Bob Elliott, who joins the North East firm as a partner, has worked for some of the top City of London and regional firms over the last 25 years. Crutes has 21 partners, and has offices in Newcastle, Teesside and Carlisle.

Elliott trained as a solicitor with Herbert Smith in the City; this was followed by periods with both Clifford Chance and Richards Butler also in London.

In the 1990s he returned to his native North East where he was a partner of two of the large regional firms. Most recently Bob was partner with Baines Wilson in Carlisle.

He will be heading up a new dedicated IP, technology and IT practice at Crutes to deal with both contentious and non-contentious cases.

He has more than 20 years’ experience in this area of the law and is one of few IT lawyers in the North of England who sit on the legal panel of UK domain name authority Nominet. He also sits on the equivalent panel for .eu domain name disputes.

“Technology, intellectual property, e-commerce and IT law are expanding areas for many of the larger firms in the region. Crutes has worked in this field before, but has not had a dedicated team in place until now,” said Elliott.

“The firm has spent the last four years expanding the legal services it offers to business in the region. It has developed an increasingly commercial focus as a firm, and I see this as being yet another string to Crutes’ bow.”

Helen Ager, Crutes managing partner, added: “Bob is a vastly experienced lawyer who is recognised as one of the leading IP and IT specialists in the North of England. We look forward to working with him and to building our reputation in this growing field of law.”