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Samantha Howell

Director

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About

Samantha is a director in the firm’s Pensions and Lifetime Savings team and advises pension scheme trustees and companies on a broad range of pensions legal issues. She is pragmatic and helps clients to find the right solution for their scheme and risk appetite.

She is the team’s Cyber Governance Lead. This has involved developing our firm’s cyber security package offering, including template documents and training. She regularly speaks about cyber security within the pensions industry, delivering training sessions for clients and pensions professionals. Samantha also regularly writes blogs and articles on this topic.

She is based in our Bristol office, but is often in the firm’s Edinburgh office to support our pensions team based in Scotland.

Samantha enjoys delivering training sessions and has experience speaking at trustee training days and seminars. She is an associate member of the Association of Pension Lawyers.

Samantha qualified into the Pensions team in 2016, having trained with the firm. She graduated with a first class degree in Law and French Law from the University of Exeter before undertaking a master’s degree in European and International Law in France.

Experience

  • AT&T ISTEL: Acting as the day-to-day contact to advise the trustees of the AT&T ISTEL Pension Plan and the Wessex Water Pension Scheme, amongst other trustee clients, on a broad range of pensions issues.
  • Cyber security incident management: Advising pension scheme clients in relation to cyber incident management, including assisting with incident response plans, regulatory notifications, member communications and legal privilege.
  • Cyber security governance: Advising clients on building their cyber resilience, including developing our cyber security package offering, advising in relation to third party contract reviews and providing cyber security training.
  • Scheme liability management: Advising clients in relation to scheme liability management, including leading specific projects, such as closures to accrual and member consent exercises, as well as ongoing scheme funding negotiations.
  • Derisking projects: Leading de-risking projects, including preparing benefit specifications and advising trustees in relation to scheme flight paths to buy-in/buy-out and winding up.
  • GMP equalisation projects: Providing detailed advice on a range of GMP equalisation projects, including in relation to methodology, forfeiture provisions, past transfers, missing data, as well as many other aspects.

Credentials

  • Admitted as a solicitor: England & Wales (2016)

Areas of expertise

Sector focus

Office

“The working relationship has been excellent… Sam has been at the forefront of the activity and been pivotal in the management of project from the legal perspective.”

Chair of the Investment Sub-Committee of the AT&T ISTEL Pension Plan

“Sam has grown into the role of leading the work, and did so in an accomplished way. We have lots of confidence in her, appreciate her grasp of the detail and the strategy we were adopting.”

Michael Prior, independent trustee

“[Sam’s cyber training] session was interesting and useful in helping us understand next steps.”

Professional trustee

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Latest thinking from Samantha

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