RPC's Insurance Group adds further strength with new financial services and D&O Specialist in Bristol

Second key Partner hire within the last three months for the firm's burgeoning FI and D&O team following the arrival of Mike Newham

Firm continues to grow its Bristol office, which this year celebrates its 10th birthday, having added 8 new Bristol Partners to its global Partnership since May 2021, through mix of lateral hires and internal promotions.

International law firm RPC has hired Terence Dickens as a Partner for its leading Insurance Group, specialising in financial services disputes. He joins the firm on 12 September 2022 and will be based in RPC's Bristol office. 

With more than 18 years' experience, Terence is a specialist in financial services disputes with a regulatory focus. He defends claims across the financial services industry, including against Directors and Officers (D&O), financial institutions (F&I) and pension professionals. 

He joins from Foot Anstey LLP, where he led the contentious side of the firm's retail financial services offering. Terence trained at Allen & Overy, before moving to Eversheds Sutherland and Foot Anstey LLP. 

RPC's Bristol office celebrated its 10th birthday earlier this year, having grown ten-fold and now led by 19 Partners (Terence included) in response to growing appetite among clients for quality service outside of London. It also moved to a new, larger office, at Bridgewater House, earlier this year to meet its ambitious growth plans.  

Terence will join the firm's FI/D&O team, which has acted for insurers in relation to most of the major market losses of the last two decades, including for insurers of the large clearing banks, global investment banks, fund managers, hedge funds and global insurers. Terence's arrival builds out RPC's directors defence capability in Bristol. 

He is the second Partner to join the burgeoning team in three months, following the arrival of FI and D&O specialist Mike Newham in London. The team is part of RPC's Insurance Group, which launched Global Access Lawyers last year, alongside five other leading insurance law firms, to offer insurers access to more joined up global claims' solutions.

Commenting on Terence's arrival, RPC's Global Head of Insurance Simon Laird said: "Bringing in Terence to help build out our D&O defence work in Bristol, alongside our first class FI/D&O team in London led by James Wickes, makes perfect sense for us. 

"As the financial services industry continues to grapple with the effects of the pandemic, coupled with the increasingly challenging socio-economic conditions, we see a continued rise in claims in professional and financial lines. Terence's arrival will give us the bench strength to continue to support our clients in all their financial services defence work across Bristol and London."

RPC Managing Partner James Miller said: "We have ambitious growth plans for the future as we look to continue to help our people and our clients to achieve their ambitions. Terence is our ninth new Partner this year and we will continue to invest in good people, including in our market-leading Insurance Group."

Terence said: "RPC's reputation in the Insurance market is first-class, in particular in defence work. I am excited to join this market-leading team to continue to capitalise on existing client relationships as well as help grow its financial services sector work."

Terence is the ninth new Partner to join the firm in the last eight months (Nicholas Lauw, Arash Rajai, Reshma Raja (General Counsel & Partner), Shai Wade, Tania Williams, Mike Newham, Rathi Thiagamoorthy and Peter Kwon) across its Commercial and Insurance Groups, as well as promoting ten new Partners to the Partnership in May. RPC now has 126 Partners across its four offices.