SMB appoints new partner, Rob Coleridge, as Partner in Dispute Resolution team

Following the recent promotion of four new Partners and a new legal director across three of our departments, SMB is excited to introduce and highlight the expertise of our newly appointed Partners.

In this article, Rob Coleridge, shares a bit about himself, his practice and our firm.

Rob joined SMB in September 2021, making Partner in April 2025. Rob’s practice mostly revolves around ultrahigh net worth individuals and their businesses, however he notes that, “all of this clients are important.”

Speaking on what attracted him to being a litigator, Rob said:

“I think it’s a combination of firstly the challenge of advising on both strategy and the law, and secondly the opportunity to work as a team with your client to get them through what can be a very difficult situation.   Being ex-military, this is particularly important to me.”

“Looking back over the years, the job has given me the opportunity to build some strong and deep client relationships, where I am still involved with my clients as a trusted advisor for some of the big decisions they have to make in their businesses.”

Litigation offers a diverse and engaging workload. Reflecting on some of the interesting work he’s been involved in, Rob said:

“Where do I start!  A lot of my clients are UHNW individuals who own and run their own businesses, so, in that context, I have advised on all sorts of corporate and commercial issues, with subjects ranging between software contracts, talent management, microchip design, estate agency fraud, influencer/social media posts, and personal family fall outs.”

“Once recent highlight was advising on a claim concerning the sales rights in over 50 films some of which dated back to the 1960s but are still worth a hell of a lot of money.  With each film, I had to work with my client to piece together the history of how the film was sold”.

“That said, I think one of my favourite disputes was advising a major fashion brand on a dispute with an influencer who had been paid a whopping sum to act as a brand ambassador.  The only problem was that the influencer then found themselves a new US agent who arranged a second ambassador contract with one of our client’s biggest competitors – as you can imagine, our client was not happy!  Fortunately, after a little “pressure” on the other side, we managed to find a very commercial solution to the problem to our client’s huge advantage.”