Top Legal Employers is run in collaboration with leading industry experts who endorsed the project in an advisory capacity. The panelists were:

Carl Lygo is a qualified barrister, having practised in London and Yorkshire. He holds a first class undergraduate degree in law as well as a higher research degree and further qualifications in business subjects. As Principal of the BPP College of Professional Studies, he has seen it grow from 20 employees to over 300 employees in the last six years. The BPP College offers training for and publications about more professional qualifications than any other company in Europe and in 2007 it became the first private sector company to be a degree-awarding entity in the UK. Carl is Director of BPP Holdings plc, Executive Chairman of BPP College of Professional Studies Limited and the Principal of BPP College. He is also the editor of Getting into Law, which is now in its 7th edition, and has been nominated one of The Lawyer magazine’s ‘Hot 100 Lawyers.’

Julia Chain is the founder of The Kite Consultancy, now merged into H4 Partners, and has over 25 years’ experience of legal and management roles in both private practice and industry. In 2005, Julia founded Kite to provide practical strategic advice to General Counsel and in-house legal teams as well as offering a range of management and client care services to law firms. Apart from advising clients on a broad range of issues, Julia regularly writes for the major legal publications and lectures at high-profile events in the legal calendar. In 2008, Kite merged with H4 Partners to provide an integrated service offering to the entire legal sector. Julia is a former Deputy Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (now the ECHR) and is a member of the academic council of the BPP College of Professional Studies, the UK’s leading professional services and training organisation.

Noel Cooper is the Director of Compensation & Benefits for Thomson Reuters’ International Legal & Regulatory group, a leading provider of integrated information solutions to legal, tax, accounting, intellectual property, compliance and business professionals around the world. Noel has degrees in Law and Social Studies, and postgraduate qualifications in Human Resources Management and Accounting & Finance, and has more than 25 years’ HR management experience with a range of companies – from blue chip multinationals to UK start-ups. For the past seven years Noel has specialised in international compensation and benefits. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and a member of the Chartered Management Institute. 

Yvonne Smyth is the Managing Director of Hays Legal – the legal recruitment division of Hays plc, the world's leading specialist recruitment groups. Hays Legal has a dominant position in the UK and international legal recruitment markets and acts as a business partner to its clients, advising them on their staffing and other related matters. Before moving into recruitment, Yvonne was a lawyer with an international law firm in the City. She specialises in the recruitment of partners into law firms and senior lawyers into commerce and industry roles.