ANNOUNCEMENT AND PERSONAL REFLECTION FROM RHIANNON TURNER

It is with great sadness that we announce that Carol Greaves, our founding partner, has died after a long illness with cancer.

After a professional career which included time with ICI, Zeneca, the Ministry of Defence and Mewburn Ellis, in 1999 Carol started her own firm, CP Greaves & Co. In 2000, she went into partnership with Andrea Brewster and Greaves Brewster LLP was born. Since Carol and Andrea lived close to one another in Somerset, south west England, as their business grew it made sense to take premises locally, rather than in a big city. They gradually grew the firm in the unique and beautiful location of Cheddar, Somerset, taking on local staff and building an organisation with a distinct culture. I was lucky enough to join that firm in 2008.

The firm Carol started had a clear vision from the outset: to work hard to produce high-quality work, delivered rapidly, without ego and with pragmatic commercial advice, at a fair price. This was done by colleagues who treated one another thoughtfully, kindly and respectfully, these being attributes which Carol understood to not be incompatible with doing work to the highest standard. This is the heart of Greaves Brewster LLP and is the culture that we strive to maintain.

As a person, Carol was kind, funny, warm, energetic, clever, thoughtful, with the ability to prioritise people even as she worked very hard to build her business and look after her clients. She was an extraordinarily effective attorney, who could work rapidly, grasping the detail of the science and the commercial situation almost immediately. Equal focus was given to spending time with staff to develop us to our fullest potential. Importantly, she did all of this with a brilliant balance of firmness and kindness. Even though she was “the boss”, she would always take other ideas and points of view into account.

I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Carol. I know I speak for my partners in saying that we are incredibly privileged to lead a firm bearing her name.

We are happy to pass on any messages regarding Carol to her family. Should anyone wish to make a donation in Carol’s name, please contact us and we will let you have details of the tribute site that has been set up.