Our team

Joanna Atkinson

Joanna’s experience includes over twenty-five years as a practising solicitor specialising in employment law.  She has also worked for an HR consultancy as its Head of HR & Legal, gaining her valuable hands-on HR experience.  She set up JMA HR & Legal in 2009.

 Joanna works with organisations of all sizes, ranging from small and medium sized businesses, large multi-national organisations and those operating in the charity and public sectors.  She has also continued to act for employees, in particular those at senior and director level, assisting in particular with the negotiation of exit packages and advising on settlement agreements, contracts of employment/service agreements and related issues, including restrictive covenants and bonus arrangements. 

Joanna is often praised by her clients for her pragmatic and approachable style.  She is commercial and yet compassionate when dealing with their HR and employment challenges.  She works with her employer clients to ensure that they are well equipped to respond to day-to-day employment issues as and when they arise, as well as taking a pro-active approach to managing their HR responsibilities. 

She is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association and the CIPD (The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). 

Joanna is committed to supporting employers and employees to manage mental health issues in the workplace positively and is a co-founder and a director of OMhAS Ltd, a consultancy with a mission to de-mystify mental health in the workplace and enable organisations to help people flourish at work.  She is also a fully trained Mental Health First Aider with MHFA England. 

Joanna is also a regular speaker at seminars and runs practical workshops on current HR and employment law matters. 

In her spare time, Joanna enjoys running, swimming, yoga, making ceramics, photography, travel and the great outdoors.  She is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the Tantum Trust, a local charity which provides grants to families, individuals and community groups throughout North East Hampshire and South West Surrey.

Sonia Bhola

Sonia is a highly experienced solicitor, having qualified in 1996 she has over twenty years’ experience advising across all areas of employment law matters.

Sonia has spent over ten years working for a City practice and a number of her previous roles have included managing teams of junior employment solicitors as well as acting as a Head of Department. Mostly the practices that Sonia has previously worked for have been considered in the top 200 Law firms in England. Sonia is also a member of the Employment Lawyers Association.

Her expertise spans over a broad range of industries and has included advising small owner managed business, satellite offices where the main company is based in Europe/America, large blue chip companies as well as charities and the voluntary sector.

Sonia has devised and delivered workshops and seminars which are bespoke to organisational needs, as well as working in collaboration with other organisations such as ACAS, HMRC and ACCA.

Sonia has been described by clients as providing sound pragmatic advice which is considered and encompassing the commercial realities of a situation. She has a no nonsense approach always trying to find the right solution for her client.

Sonia enjoys spending time with her young family and in the little spare time she has left she likes to practice meditation, yoga and pilates.

Gina Savanhu

Gina has over 20 years of experience in UK immigration law. She trained at a leading
immigration and human rights law firm where she represented clients in immigration
appeals, and in judicial review challenges in the higher courts. In 2007, Gina was fortunate
to be chosen to travel to Nepal to prepare immigration applications for retired Gurkha
soldiers who wished to settle in the UK. She then went on to work as a government lawyer
where she advised a central government department in Public Law litigation relating to
immigration law before she decided to return to private practice in 2012.

Gina’s principal areas of work include advising businesses and employers on UK
immigration matters. She supports employers in various sectors including education,
healthcare, IT, finance, fashion, and engineering, in their worker sponsorship applications
and in compliance matters. Her clients have commended her for making “the complexities of
the UK immigration system easier to understand”.

In her spare time, Gina enjoys running, practising yoga, travelling, and supporting the best
football club in North London.

Anna Bose

Anna has over 25 years of specialist immigration experience having started her career with the Home Office in 1997. In 1999 she joined one of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms where she was responsible for the management of a team of immigration caseworkers and lucky enough to be seconded to Hong Kong for 6 months. After 7 years in this role, Anna moved in-house and headed up Immigration for the UK and EMEA region of one of the large global IT consultancy companies. She then moved to a boutique global immigration practice before heading up and re-launching the immigration team in another ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm. In 2014 Anna assisted in setting up a boutique immigration practice and has remained working in boutique practices ever since providing immigration advice and support to employers and individuals. Anna’s extensive experience has therefore given her the opportunity and the benefit of being the ‘gamekeeper”, the “poacher”, the client, and assignee. 

Anna’s approach is to give sound and practical advice to help her clients to help them navigate the immigration “minefield” with as little or as much support as they feel they need. She sees her main role as reducing the stresses surrounding the legalities and the administration involved in dealing with immigration matters in the workplace. Anna also provides immigration training to clients. 

In her spare time Anna is an avid sports fan with football and cricket season tickets. She loves attending live music gigs and is a member of Ronnie Scott’s.

Jennifer Nicol

Jennifer is a highly rated employment lawyer, with over 20 years’ experience. At JMA, Jennifer provides advice to organisations and individuals on a wide range of employment law issues from hiring and exits, to outsourcing, complex investigations and workplace disputes. She is described as someone who provides superb service, assumes the role of a genuine business partner and who delivers pragmatic, succinct, fit for purpose advice.  Clients say that she is steadfast but extremely pleasant to work with and an adviser who “really gets people”.

Before joining JMA, Jennifer was a Partner (14 years) and Head of Canary Wharf at a leading specialist law firm where she led a team of 6 lawyers.  In this role, she developed a passion for supportive leadership and mentoring. 

Jennifer is qualified in Workplace Inclusion and has had training in mental health.  She is also a Mental Health First Aider (MHFAE) and is in the process of training to be a Resilience First Aider.  Having many years of experience of dealing with disputes with a mental health aspect, Jennifer is passionate about workplace wellbeing and mental health.  Jennifer works closely with a select group of external experts to equip individuals and organisations to achieve positive mental health outcomes.  Her commitment to help organisations to improve workplace mental health culture led Jennifer to become a co-founder and director of OMhAS Ltd, a consultancy business with a mission to simplify workplace mental health and to help organisations to enable people to flourish at work. 

Jennifer has written extensively both for clients and well-known publications on employment law developments and is also a regular speaker at seminars and events. 

In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys family time outdoors, travelling, keeping fit (especially Reformer Pilates), cooking, reading and meditation.

Laura Reilly

Laura is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management, Chartered member of The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Associate Chartered Institute of Legal Executives member with a certificate in employment practice and a qualified Paralegal. She is a highly experienced HR professional specialising in employment law, talent acquisition and development, organisational development, employment relations and litigation.

She has over 15 years of private and non-profit sector experience, a practical understanding of operational management as a national operations manager, combined with operational and strategic HR management experience, up to Board level. She was previously a director of a medium-sized Accountancy Practice specialising in HR consultancy and employment law for clients and is considered an integral part of senior leadership teams driving cultural change.

In her spare time Laura enjoys playing netball, spending time with her family and winning the odd pub quiz. She also holds a full motorbike licence and occasionally has a ride out.

Verity Saxon

Verity is an employment law expert and tribunal litigator with over 15 years’ experience as a qualified solicitor.

She has a reputation for navigating her clients through their complex workplace issues with her no-nonsense, sound business approach to finding solutions.

Verity’s particular focus and expertise are around advising clients on complex, and highly sensitive disciplinary and grievance issues. Her methodical and strategic approach has given her clients the tools to overcome some very difficult ER issues.

Verity has over 15 years’ of tribunal litigation experience, and her particular interest has been defending multi-discrimination claims. Known for her sound business acumen, Verity has a reputation of achieving successful results for clients.

Learning and training is an essential part of employee relations for Verity’s key clients, and her friendly and approachable style means she is regularly asked to provide clients with in-house training. Verity’s training sessions are practical, interesting and engaging. She creates bespoke sessions for her clients to fit the needs of the business and their key HR priorities.

When Verity is not busy running around after her four young children, she enjoys cooking and days out on the beach.