Three leading projects lawyers from City firm Nabarro have joined fast-growing Temple Bright’s London office as partners to launch a new practice area.
They are former Nabarro partners Tom Bainbridge and Louisa Cilenti, and senior associate Sandy Abrahams, who made up the core of Nabarro’s Climate Change & Energy team. 
The team has gained a particularly strong reputation in clean energy projects and regulation. Bainbridge, Cilenti and Abrahams recently picked up an award for the project financing of the first utility scale wind farm in the Middle East, and are involved in a number of other renewables projects in the region. They are also market leaders for “distributed generation” (generating electricity locally) and are involved in some of the largest district heating projects in the UK, as well as developing new routes to market for local energy projects.
Tom Bainbridge, pictured, said: “We’re really excited about moving to Temple Bright and our clients seem to be just as excited as us. The firm’s streamlined model gives us the ideal opportunity to offer them the nimble, expert service and tailored pricing that the market is calling for.”
“We have a great order book of work already and we are looking forward to building our practice within this new context. It’s the perfect fit for us.”
Louisa Cilenti, pictured below, said: “The legal marketplace is changing fast. The Temple Bright model fundamentally changes the way that lawyers can interact with their clients. With no imposed management hierarchy or billing targets, we are released to focus solely on supporting our clients’ objectives and building common goals with them, in an industry we care about deeply.”
Temple Bright co-founder Tim Summers said: “We are delighted to welcome Tom, Louisa and Sandy to the team at Temple Bright. They bring unsurpassed expertise in a niche area which is of vital importance today, and for which we hope to see increasing demand as governments and the private sector take action to halt climate change.” 
Temple Bright launched its London office with two partners in March 2013. The London office now has 11 partners, from City firms including Freshfields, Herbert Smith Freehills, Nabarro, Simmons & Simmons, SJ Berwin, Slaughter and May and Travers Smith. The firm most recently announced its recruitment of David Meredith, who was head of outsourcing at Kemp Little and SJ Berwin before joining the management team at RPC.
The firm, established by two former City lawyers in Bristol in 2010, now has 27 partners based in Bristol and London. Its most distinctive feature is its ‘chambers practice' model, based broadly on a barristers’ chambers, in which experienced solicitors work in teams from the firm’s two offices. Costs are reduced through technology and lawyers are able to adopt client-friendly ways of charging, generally involving fixed and capped fees.
Summers continues: “We feel that the recruitment of a high profile team from a major City firm, just over a year since launching in London, is a significant endorsement of Temple Bright’s innovative approach. Our model means that senior lawyers like Tom, Louisa and Sandy can work with their clients in an efficient way, and the clients get hands-on involvement from experts, with certainty on fees. Everyone wins.”
