Mike is a partner and head of the firm’s Defamation & Privacy group. He played a major role in establishing the firm’s reputation for quality dispute resolution, handling the full range of copyright and contractual disputes for clients within the creative industries of music, film, television and sport, and ranging from artists and actors to record labels and production companies.
Mike joined Lee & Thompson in 1998 and has been instrumental in helping to protect the reputation of some of the firm’s highest profile clients. Various battles with the tabloid press were fought and won over the years for well-known names, such as One Direction and its members, Jude Law, Eddie Redmayne, Frankie Boyle, Paul Hollywood, Christopher Eccleston and Charlotte Church. He has also acted for a number of prominent figures in industry, politics and royalty.
Building on his pre-publication content clearance work for the firm’s well-established film and television production client base, Mike has in recent years built up an enviable client roster of media defendants, such that his highly regarded practice is now genuinely a mixed one. He is regularly instructed to defend insured claims by all three of the main Errors and Omissions insurers, and represents two national broadcasters in this area, as well as a host of successful film and television production companies.
Also fully immersed in the film and television world, Mike has a significant copyright and defamation clearance practice acting for producer clients on major feature films and television productions, including ‘Black Doves’, ‘ccEmily’, ‘Outrageous’, ‘Brassic’ and ‘Waiting for the Out’.
The new UK edition of Chambers & Partners ranks Mike as a Band 1 leader in his field. Mike is also ranked in the Spear’s Magazine Reputation Managers Index as one of few ‘Top Recommended’ reputation lawyers.
