Carpmaels & Ransford hires Freshfields patent partner Chris Stothers
Carpmaels & Ransford continues to expand its litigation practice. Christopher Stothers is joining the firm as a partner in London and Dublin from Freshfields, where he had been a partner since 2018. The hire follows previous hires in London and Germany.
17 September 2026 by Laura King
In the year of its 250th anniversary, Carpmaels & Ransford is really pulling out all the stops. Christopher Stothers has jumped ship to the IP boutique today. He began his career as a trainee solicitor at Linklaters in London in 2001, before moving to Milbank as an associate in 2003, focusing on IP litigation. In 2010, Stothers joined Arnold & Porter as counsel, becoming a partner in 2012 with a focus on intellectual property and competition litigation. In June 2018, Stothers moved to Freshfields, together with counsel Laura Whiting and two associates, all with a strong patent focus.
Stothers advises on complex cross-border disputes in the life sciences and technology sectors, with particular expertise at the intersection of IP, antitrust and pharmaceutical regulatory law. Furthermore, he has appeared before the UPC in several local divisions and at the Court of Appeal. For example, he brought a landmark transparency case that secured wider public access to UPC documents. As part of an international Freshfields team, Stothers helped defend Kodak in the dispute with FujiFilm at the UPC Court of Appeal. In addition, he was also part of a Freshfields team that successfully represented Moderna in a fight with BioNTech at the UK courts, although the EPO Technical Boards of Appeal recently revoked the patent-in-suit.
At Carpmaels & Ransford, Stothers will work with colleagues in the London, Dublin and Munich offices on UPC and EPO matters. He is listed as a WIPO and UPC PMAC neutral.
Anniversary year expansion
Stothers is the latest in a string of lateral hires at Carpmaels & Ransford. In summer 2025, the firm hired London litigation partner Andrew Hutchinson from Simmons & Simmons to bolster its UPC offering. Late last year, Carpmaels expanded into Germany with Hoffmann Eitle associate partner Mike Gruber, followed on 1 January 2026 by former Hoffmann Eitle equity partner Niels Hölder. Both were the firm’s first German lawyers, tasked with developing the Munich office into a IP-related full-service location.
In June 2026, the firm also recruited patent attorney Kevin Cordina, head of UK IP at Simmons & Simmons, as a partner in its engineering and tech group. Carpmaels was one of the first UK firms to establish a dedicated litigation practice integrated within a patent attorney firm in Europe. It has around 100 qualified UPC representatives.
The firm made an early mark at the UPC in life sciences disputes, representing Sanofi and Regeneron against Amgen over cholesterol-lowering drugs Praluent and Repatha, Curio Bioscience against 10x Genomics, and Merz Pharmaceuticals and SharkNinja, among others.
Second loss for Freshfields
James Warner, senior partner at Carpmaels & Ransford, says, “Christopher is one of the most highly regarded patent litigators in Europe. His experience leading sophisticated cross-border disputes, combined with his deep sector expertise in both life sciences and technology, will be an enormous asset to our clients.”
Jennifer Antcliff, head of litigation at Carpmaels & Ransford, adds that the litigation group is growing “in response to increasing demand from our clients to act on their most technically and legally challenging cases”.
Stothers’ departure marks the second partner departure from Freshfields’ European patent litigation team this year. In the Netherlands, Jelle Drok recently left the firm to launch an AI-native law firm with Vondst partner Arvid van Oorschot. (Co-author: Mathieu Klos)
