Healthcare head quits Mills & Reeve to join No5

No5 Chambers has hired Mills & Reeve head of healthcare David Lock to set up a new public law group.

Lock, a former government minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department, leaves Mills & Reeve after four years and takes with him Nageena Khalique, who was previously a barrister at No5. The duo is set to join in January.

Ralph Lewis QC, head of No5, said the new recruits will be at the heart of the new public law group.

Lock said: "When I joined Mills & Reeve the healthcare practice turned over £5m, and now it's £12m. Recently I've done a series of cases in the High Court and it's got to the point where I can't really do advocacy and run the practice, as it's got too big.

"I decided that if I had to choose between the two, I wanted to stick with advocacy, which is why the move to No5 suited me."

Lock, who was called to the bar in 1987, practised in Birmingham for 10 years before being elected as the Labour MP for Wyre Forest in 1997.