Eleanor Stephens

Eleanor is a senior insolvency solicitor with over 20 years' specialist knowledge in all aspects of insolvency, both corporate and personal, covering contentious and non-contentious matters.

Eleanor qualified as a solicitor in 1998, and before joining Harper James in 2020 she was head of Restructuring & Insolvency at Lexis Nexis, leading the creation of one of the leading on-line legal guidance facilities for insolvency professionals available in the market. Prior to that she was a partner and head of Business Recovery & Insolvency at a Top 100 regional firm. During this time she undertook a 9-month secondment with the Pensions Regulator, providing insolvency advice on pensions matters.

Eleanor remains as a legal expert on the Lexis Ask Panel for Lexis Nexis, providing specialist guidance for insolvency solicitors and practitioners. 

Eleanor has many years of experience acting for directors and business owners, administrators, official receivers, liquidators, trustees in bankruptcy, bankrupts, debtors and creditors and others, covering a wide range of insolvency matters. She has a particular specialism in advising directors, and in director disqualification proceedings, having worked for many years on the other side, bringing disqualification prosecutions for the government.

Working in this area with so many different stakeholders for different reasons over the years has given me a well rounded insight into recovery and insolvency. What is important to one, is not the priority of another. Working out what drives not only my clients, but also others such as banks, insolvency practitioners and government services, can really help in providing the right advice at the right time for my clients.

Eleanor’s experience allows her to provide comprehensive and practical advice to clients facing any form of financial challenge, either personally or within their business. Her approach is to work with clients to ensure they can move forward to reach the best solution for them as painlessly and cost effectively as possible.

One of the things I most enjoy about my work is being able to work with corporate clients often before they have reached the point of no return. It gives me great satisfaction to be able to help a struggling company change its course and discover what options it might have to recover.

Eleanor is experienced in:

• Acting with insolvency practitioners on a full range of insolvency issues, both advisory and litigious, including antecedent transaction issues, retention of title, guidance on and acting in all aspects of liquidations, administrations (including pre pack sales), company voluntary arrangements, receiverships, and all matters arising in the role of trustee in bankruptcy.

• Acting with individual directors, shareholders and sole practitioners, providing advice and guidance on their particular circumstances, working with them to consider all options and reach the best solution for them. This might include formal insolvency proceedings, but often working with clients utilising the many options for recovery and turnaround available to them. Eleanor’s advisory work covers personal liability as directors, and the prohibited names regime, among others.

• Working with private clients requiring advice managing their personal situation in order to avoid bankruptcy if appropriate, or to work through the process with them, including considering alternatives such as individual voluntary arrangements and debt management options. 

When not working, Eleanor indulges her passion for travelling together with her husband and reluctant traveller cocker spaniel Sidney. She also hugely enjoys socialising, the theatre, cinema, reading and walking.