Byfield, the Legal sector communications specialist, today announces the appointment of Director Michael Evans, former Europe, Middle East & Africa communications head at Baker McKenzie. This senior appointment is the latest development in a period of sustained growth for the agency and closely follows the arrival of former Slaughter and May Head of Communications Ben Girdlestone.
At Byfield, Michael will help clients with their strategic content programmes, special situations and litigation PR. He will also broaden Byfield’s focus on legal tech and other specialist suppliers to professional services firms and their clients.
“Michael is a highly respected and well- connected legal sector comms specialist and it’s great to have him join our team. We now have two of the most experienced and talented senior PR professionals in the London market who have joined Byfield from premier law firms in quick succession,” said Gus Sellitto, Byfield’s managing director. “We want to be the leading communications consultancy providing reputation counsel to major players in the legal sector and we are investing in making this aspiration a reality.”
Michael spent nine years at Baker McKenzie, working closely with global and regional leadership on corporate communications for Baker McKenzie’s 35 EMEA offices in 25 countries. He also developed and led several high-profile thought leadership campaigns and had global responsibilities for various global practice groups and innovation-related communications. Prior to Baker McKenzie, he spent six years in senior PR roles at Herbert Smith Freehills, after starting his career as a journalist and editor at Euromoney Institutional Investor.
“I’m genuinely excited to be joining Byfield and doing high-quality work here for great clients, working with a fantastic team of professionals,” said Michael. “It’s an energising time of new opportunities for Byfield and our clients. There are so many possibilities to further develop our offering across the legal sector and beyond to the wider universe of legal tech, as well as being on the forefront of fast-growing forms of litigation PR as collective actions become more and more prevalent in the UK and Europe.”
Founded in 2007 to coincide with the advent of the Legal Services Act, Byfield has worked with over 175 national, international and sector-leading law firms at both the firmwide and practice area levels. Byfield is a founding member of Mirovia, the first international alliance of specialist legal sector communications agencies who work together to provide multi-jurisdictional campaigns, or to offer on-the-ground support in one country.
