Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of In Brief.

I am delighted in this issue to be able to introduce you to our seven new partners; Fearghal O’Loan, Andrew Ryan, Ciara Dooris, Vicky Dummigan, David McDonnell, James Donnelly and Toby McMurray. All, apart from Andrew Ryan, will hopefully be known to you, each having worked for Tughans for some time. Andrew has joined Tughans from another large Belfast practice to head our environment and planning team and we welcome him to the firm. All of the new partners are talented and highly experienced solicitors many having worked earlier in their careers for large law firms in the City of London, elsewhere in the UK or in the Republic of Ireland.

I would also like to welcome to Tughans, Niall McSorley who has joined the employment department and Shauna McAuley who, having trained with us, has been appointed to the medical negligence/advisory department.

As always we have included some articles which we hope will be of interest to you. James McMullan and Brid McColgan from the firm’s private client department look at the doctrine of adverse possession and the rise of contentious probate claims respectively, John McGuckian of our corporate department addresses the subject of debt for equity substitutions/swaps and Andrew Ryan, head of environment and planning, looks at the topical issue of environmental permitting and planning applications.

It is also pleasing to report that we once again received very positive reviews and high rankings in the recently published legal directories – the Legal 500, UK Edition and in Chambers UK, a client’s guide to the UK legal profession. Eighteen members of staff were also singled out for favourable comment across these two directories.

Finally, as summer approaches and we look forward to the warmer weather after what has been for everyone a long winter, may I take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support and wish you and your colleagues a relaxing summer break and continuing success in 2010 and beyond.