William Nell

William is qualified as a Solicitor of England & Wales. He practised as an Advocate in the litigation team of a leading UK law firm, before moving in executive search in the early 2000’s. He is a London based Partner in the Professional Services Group focussed on search mandates for law firm Partners and senior in-house Lawyers. He set up the executive search practice at Graham Gill Consulting in 2004, this became a market leading practice which then combined with Signium in 2015.

His clients include major UK and US led international law firms, leading boutique law firms and corporates. William is often consulted by law firm management to advise on growth strategy in Europe. This has led to his having been retained on a number of mandates to identify and approach merger targets for law firm clients. He is known for his market intelligence and is often retained by law firms on due diligence assignments carried out on potential partner hires.

Whilst he has significant experience of undertaking search mandates for partners, teams and senior lawyers across many legal practice areas including corporate, commercial, litigation, finance, IP/IT, TMT, tax, real estate, projects and regulatory, he is renowned as a market leader in the antitrust/competition space where he has been responsible for many headline moves. He has undertaken numerous searches for lawyers with specific sector expertise in industries such as aviation; financial services; real estate; TMT and energy. 
William completed his Solicitors finals at the College of Law in Guildford and then qualified as a Solicitor of England & Wales in 1999. He is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales. When not at work, he enjoys cycling which led to his taking part in the Legal & General ride from London to Cannes in 2015 and 2019 in aid of Coram. He has completed the London marathon and is a keen skier and fly fisherman.