Spear’s Review

Law firm Withers describes itself as ‘the law firm for successful people’, and it’s a tagline that fits.

How much of that is down to CEO Margaret Robertson? Before becoming joint managing director in 2002 (and then taking on the job solo from 2007), she headed the firm’s top-tier litigation practice. Since then, the commercially savvy lawyer has been instrumental in the firm’s all-important international expansion. In 2026, after almost 25 years, Robertson will step down as CEO to make way for Ceri Vokes, the firm’s current co-head of private client and tax. 

The firm points to the fact that it has now advised 70 per cent of the top 100 in the Sunday Times Rich List, 25 per cent of the top 100 in the Forbes Rich List and 35 per cent of the Top 20 Hong Kong billionaires in the Forbes World’s Billionaires list.

An Oxford graduate in jurisprudence, Robertson first joined Withers as a trainee in 1984, becoming a partner in 1990.

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