Jeanette Wheeler

Jeanette is a Partner and is currently transitioning from Head of Employment and Immigration Team to the firm’s Head of Corporate Services Division, a role she will take up from 1 April 2025.

Jeanette trained as an employment lawyer and joined a leading international firm upon qualification in 1998 where she travelled extensively to the US and worked with some significant international businesses. She became a Partner in 2005 and in 2007 she moved to Birketts LLP to lead and grow its then embryonic employment team. The team has since grown from 4 to 40 plus lawyers and support staff and has also diversified and now includes an immigration practice, an investigations unit, a share incentives team, a client workplace training offering (Shaping Excellence) and a HR consultancy. In 2020 the employment team won the Legal 500 award for Best HR legal team outside of London.

Jeanette has been twice elected to sit on Birketts’ Management Board and on its remuneration committee and will rejoin the Board on 1 January 2025.   

Jeanette has undertaken a number of external Board and other roles over the years including Chair of the Norwich Business Women’s Network, Norfolk Law Society President, Director and Deputy Chair of New Anglian Local Enterprise Partnership and she currently sits as an independent member of Council at the University of East Anglia and on its Remuneration Committee.

Jeanette is regularly asked to be a speaker at events and provide radio and TV commentary. In 2013 Jeanette was co-opted onto the BIS Business Challenge Panel, a government review of employment legislation aimed at rolling back employment law red tape on employers.

Experience & education

Eversheds – Partner

Howes Percival – Trainee

Guildford School of Law University of East Anglia