What people say about us

Jane Mitchell: 'She really empathises with you - she'll always respond if you get in touch with her in a panic. She's very friendly and approachable and she's got that personable bond with you.' 

Ruth James: 'She always has a lovely relationship with her clients, she seems to be able to generate real warmth with them, and at the same time with her opponents she's super professional and careful.' 

Chambers UK - 2020 edition

'Penningtons Manches Cooper has strong regional presence.' 

Jane Mitchell: 'She is enormously experienced, has fantastic judgement and is always very thorough and careful in both her preparation and her consideration of the issues that arise.' 

Chambers UK - 2021 edition

'Penningtons Manches Cooper has an impressive cohort of family lawyers. A real strength in the team appears to be the ability to work together cohesively to ensure the best possible outcome for the clients.'

'Jane Mitchell was absolutely fantastic and very supportive.'  

Ruth James: 'She is a first-class finance and children lawyer. She is incredibly bright but also very human, and so she is able to bring a really rounded approach to her cases.'

Chambers UK - 2022 edition

'Everyone I have been instructed by at Penningtons has been very professional, detailed-oriented and provides sensible and realistic advice.' 

'They have really good associates - they're very hard-working, on top of the detail and really good with clients.' 

Jane Mitchell: 'Jane was highly professional, knowledgeable, calming and reassuring.' 

Chambers UK - 2023 edition

'Ruth James manages to combine acute legal acumen and emotional empathy to create a winning combination that provides her clients with first-rate support and representation.'

The Legal 500 - 2020 edition

‘The team is exceptional. The firm is highly efficient with symbiotic strength between departments, between individuals, and geographical areas. The technology is exceptional.’ 

The Legal 500 - 2022 edition

'A Thames Valley powerhouse with international reach.'

The Legal 500 - 2023 edition

Advises a wide range of clients, with noted expertise in the education sector. Regularly handles auto-enrolment matters, as well as liability reduction and scheme mergers.

Strengths: ‘They perform very well and seem a pretty go-ahead firm.’

Notable practitioners

Maria Riccio is ‘reliable, knowledgeable and able to explain things in a way that clients understand,’ market sources said. Clients regard her as ‘excellent at foreseeing developments and alerting us to them’. She has expertise across a broad array of pensions matters.

Chambers UK – 2015 edition

Acts for pension trustees and employer organisations on the full range of issues. Particularly highlighted for education and charities work.

Notable practitioners

Maria Riccio is 'very pleasant and gets on well with clients,' sources report, describing her as 'empathetic, reliable and efficient.' Her practice encompasses the full range of pensions issues, acting both for employers and trustees.

Chambers UK - 2016 edition

Well-established practice with expertise in all aspects of pension scheme arrangements. Well known for advising public and private employers and trustees, with a specialism in assisting clients in the education, charity and private wealth sectors. 

Strengths: ‘They kept me abreast of what was happening and if I needed to find out something, I'd get an immediate response.’ 

Notable practitioners

Maria Riccio possesses a wealth of experience advising trustees and employers on a wide array of pension matters. She wins admiration from clients as ‘an excellent problem solver’ and for her ability to ‘explain complex matters in a language that a client can understand.’

Chambers UK - 2017 edition

Well-established practice with expertise in all aspects of pension scheme arrangements. Experienced in advising on defined benefit schemes. Well known for advising public and private employers and trustees, with a specialism in assisting clients in the education, charity and private wealth sectors. 

Strengths: A commentator highlights the team's ‘fine commercial awareness and recognition of the practicalities.’

Another points out the ‘excellent service which has been competitively charged.’

Notable practitioners
Maria Riccio advises a broad client base on a range of pension issues, including those arising from transactions and reorganisations. Sources appreciate her ability to ‘explain complex matters in a way that clients and non-specialists can understand.’

Chambers UK - 2018 edition

Strengths: ‘The team is excellent and they provide good value,’ notes a client.

‘The team works well and efficiently,’ says a source.

Notable practitioners
Maria Riccio is an expert in the field who works with clients on a wide range of pensions matters. Sources say: ‘She is knowledgeable and experienced in pensions work, can form a view quickly and is an excellent sounding board.’

Chambers UK - 2019 edition

Strengths: Sources say: 'They have good experience and strength across the range of pensions issues.'

Clients report: 'The quality of advice, support and guidance could not have been better.'

Chambers UK - 2021 edition

Maria Riccio is ‘a leader in her field’. The firm advises names such as House of Fraser, Imerys Minerals, and the RAF Association Pension Scheme.

The Legal 500 – 2014 edition

Penningtons Manches LLP has ‘excellent specialist knowledge’, and practice head Maria Riccio is ‘practical, friendly and reliable’.

The Legal 500 - 2015 edition

Penningtons Manches LLP’s team ‘punches above its weight in the market’, and practice head Maria Riccio is ‘a safe pair of hands for any case, large or small’. The firm advised Sun Life of Canada on the operation of its historic pension products.

The Legal 500 - 2016 edition

At Penningtons Manches LLP, the ‘friendly, incisive and dependable’ Maria Riccio is particularly recommended for defined benefit plan matters and acts for trustees, employers and intermediaries, ‘demonstrating a deftness of touch when dealing with clients’. The ‘very experienced’ practice is prized for its ‘practical and commercial approach’. Verity Cruse is also well regarded.

The Legal 500 - 2017 edition

Maria Riccio's ‘small but highly experienced and effective pensions team’ at Penningtons Manches LLP is ‘excellent and always readily available, providing prompt, succinct and clear advice’. The ‘friendly, reliable and very personable’ Riccio is ‘extremely knowledgeable and discusses legally difficult issues in a clear and understandable manner’. Riccio is particularly recommended for defined benefit plan matters, as well as being the key lawyer in the team dealing with large pensions projects including scheme mergers and closures, major documentation exercises and debt issues. Riccio is primarily assisted by senior associate Clare Coley, whose key focus is on defined contribution pensions and in particular defined contribution governance and auto-enrolment.

The Legal 500 - 2019 edition

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP has a strong reputation as one of 'the most pre-eminent pension practices in the South East' and works across all sectors with an emphasis on charities, insurance and private wealth. It provides transnational support and training, as well as handling contentious matters such as pension fraud. Clare Coley and Verity Cruse are of note.

The Legal 500 - 2020 edition

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP's 'pleasant, approachable, informative and friendly' team provides full transactional support to clients from the private wealth, not for profit, public services and education sectors. The firm also handles work for individuals, principally involving pension disputes with their schemes or employers. Maria Riccio is 'knowledgeable and approachable' in advising on defined benefit schemes and contentious pension-related work. Clare Coley specialises in defined contribution and auto-enrolment issues.

They seamlessly achieve and maintain the balance between friendly, informal interaction with us as clients and adhering to the strict, professional and unwavering attention to detail in application and interpretation of the points of law.

The Legal 500 - 2021 edition