Tuck & Mann takes SA legal 'team' on board

EPSOM-BASED practice Tuck & Mann has signed South African lawyers Charmaine and Greville Hast as paralegals.

Greville Hast started in the firm's Guildford office earlier this year, and matrimonial lawyer Charmaine joined in Epsom this month.

Greville Hast says they are both awaiting news from the Lord Chancellor's Department on the avenues open to South African lawyers wanting to qualify in the UK in the light of the country rejoining the international business community.

He says he and his wife made the move because they wanted a "first world education" for their two children.

He says Charmaine's links with Tuck & Mann began last year when she used the firm to deliver divorce papers in the UK.

"It was more fortuitous. Charmaine had a large divorce practice back in South Africa and that was how we came into contact with Tuck & Mann," he says.

"They felt that we would be able to generate work from our 15 years of practice in South Africa.

"We want to stay here, but we would like to think we can build up a practice doing referral work from home."

Tuck & Mann partner James Chignell says the Hasts' appointments are "an adjunct to our practice".

"We have a number of South African connections and this seemed an ideal bolt-on to that practice."