History

Hannaford Turner (HT) opened its doors for business on 1 August 2016 from an office suite at 15 Old Bailey directly opposite the iconic Central Criminal Court building.

The four founding Partners – Matt Hannaford, Justin Turner, Owen McHugh and Keith Krut – shared a clear vision for HT. Put simply, to establish a specialist maritime law firm with an international reputation for excellence serving a global client base.

Having been Partners at magic circle and traditional City of London shipping law firms and with many decades of collective experience, the founding partners strongly believed that there was a gap in the market for a new maritime English law firm – one with a real focus on the maritime industry and on building and fostering strong, long-term relationships with its clients.

Since 2016, the firm has grown considerably into a fifteen-partner practice with broad specialisms across the maritime, aviation, energy and physical assets sectors. Despite the firm’s year-on-year growth, curated expansion of its service offering and market share, the original mission statement and ethos of the firm remains the same, as it has always been. This is because, when making strategic lateral hires, HT has not simply sought individuals who can add strength and breadth to HT’s offering, but importantly those who also share HT’s vision and values regarding the meaning of client service. This is, and will always be, at the core of HT.

As with any business, a successful law firm is not possible without an effective administration and finance support team. As the number of lawyers at HT increased, key hires were made within HT’s support team, ensuring that the firm has a first class administrative and support function, there to help service the firm’s clients.

So far, in our short but exciting history, we HT has established itself as one of London’s most dynamic and preeminent specialist city law firms composed of industry leading lawyers offering best-in-class service to a diverse client base comprised of some of the largest and most important businesses operating across the maritime industry, some of the world’s most affluent business men and women and their private family offices, international law firms seeking specialist advice and a wide array of market participants in the specialist areas in which we operate. The firm was singled out in 2019 as the Chambers & Partners ‘Emerging Firm of the Year’ and many of the firm’s lawyers are recognized in the legal directories as leaders in their respective fields.
We are proud and regular supporters of causes and charities within our local community and further afield including supporting the Sabre Education Trust, the Sailors’ Children’s Society, Bow Food Bank, the Downs Syndrome Association and fittingly the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

In 2021, as a consequence of our expansion (and with an eye to the future) we moved premises to 107 Cheapside in the heart of the City of London, a stone’s throw away from St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange.