Addleshaw Goddard has announced the arrival of commercial litigation expert Bill Gilliam from Eversheds. The hire is part of the firm's strategy to strengthen its core offering in Leeds as well as investing in its capability to handle large complex disputes in the healthcare sector in particular, and also in the IT, public and public procurement sectors.

Leeds-based Bill Gilliam was head of Eversheds' Health and Life Sciences practice, and is also one of the country's top procurement litigation practitioners.

Bill has a wealth of experience, acting for FTSE 100 clients, public sector bodies, and especially health and pharma companies on a range of high value and high profile disputes. He has extensive experience in healthcare – one of Addleshaw Goddard's key sectors – including a secondment as Acting Head of Legal in the Commercial Directorate of the Department of Health, and is also a well known and respected practitioner in the local Yorkshire market.

He is noted in the Legal 500 as providing "expert advice which is appropriate and practical" and in Chambers as being "praised for his extensive litigation experience and for being "bright and pragmatic"".

Bill joins Addleshaw Goddard having acted on many high profile matters including:

 * successfully defending the challenge to GSCE grades brought by judicial review;
 * positively resolving procurement disputes for Covent Garden Market Authority and Roche Diagnostics; and
 * assisting with the Mid-Staffordshire Inquiry.

Commenting on the appointment, Simon Kamstra, Addleshaw Goddard's Head of Litigation, said: "Bill is a highly skilled technical lawyer with a proven track record of litigating large scale disputes for a client base similar to our own – indeed for several major clients we already represent.

"Our Leeds-based team, working independently, or in combination with our other UK and overseas offices attracts complex cases for numerous FTSE 100 companies, banks, Government bodies and other household names as well as high value cross-border disputes - in the last 12 months we have run cases from Korea, Italy, France, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, India and Indonesia. We plan to keep the momentum going in 2014, through further targeted investment in specialist personnel."

Addleshaw Goddard's litigation practice has over 31 partners. Independent legal directories rank the Leeds-based team as a market leader.