Retail and consumer
Hall of Fame
The lawyers at the very top of the profession, widely known and respected by peers and clients for their longstanding involvement in market-leading work.
Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.
Dentons
James is co-head of Clients and Markets and a member of the Executive Committee. He has 25 years' experience as a real estate litigator, is a Chambers "Eminent Practitioner" and leading retail and consumer lawyer.
James specializes in working with global clients and brands converging their global panels and captures, managers and reports on the matrix of financial and other data to drive their performance.
He has advised some of the very largest and best-known global brands on complex international litigation, including advice at the UK Supreme Court, multijurisdictional logistics and distribution issues, agency and distribution agreements, expansion into new markets and a wide range of commercial issues across multiple jurisdictions.
James is an advisory board member for LawWithoutWalls, a unique global legal innovation, mentoring and collaboration program working with clients and changing legal education and global working, and solving complex legal and commercial problems.
He is an ambassador for the Retail Trust which has been working since 1832 to improve the lives of colleagues working in retail.
James has been awarded the International Office & Lexology Client Choice Award honoring practitioners for outstanding commitment to client service.
Mishcon de Reya LLP
Sally is a partner in the firm's Intellectual Property department and head of the Brands group. She advises on brand protection strategies including clearance, monitoring and enforcement as well as trade mark and design filing. She acts for brands at all stages, from creation through to international expansion, both in preparation for investment and following acquisition. Sally advises clients in a wide variety of sectors ranging from betting and gaming to real estate. She is co-head of the firm's Retail group and takes a lead role in the firm's mentoring programmes with the British Fashion Council and Walpole, and sits on the UK Council of the Creative Industries Federation. Prior to qualifying as a lawyer Sally worked in brand management for Benckiser (Reckitt Benckiser), Heinz and Budweiser where her responsibilities included new product development, advertising, promotion, PR, packaging and sponsorship. She is frequently called upon by both the press and broadcast media to comment on brand related developments.
Mishcon de Reya LLP
Lewis is a commercial Partner in the Intellectual Property department and specialises in commercial and IP arrangements. Lewis works with clients from a broad range of sectors to help them to generate income from their IP and to extend their international reach through franchising, distribution, agency and licensing arrangements. He advises on the full range of commercial, IP and media agreements including: manufacturing; services; management; sponsorship; endorsement; terms and conditions; publishing; development; assignments; and other exploitation arrangements. He also advises on the use and exploitation of IP rights. Lewis has strong sector experience in sport; fashion, luxury and retail; media and entertainment; food services and digital, as well as the specialist agreements in these sectors. For example, in sport, Lewis advises on major sponsorships; venue hires; hospitality; catering; ticketing; broadcasting; licensing; tour and friendly match arrangements. In retail, he has advised on high-profile major endorsement arrangements; international franchising; product distribution; retail websites; and app development. In media, Lewis has advised YouTubers; film and TV distributors; publishers; and authors. He has been named as one of the Hot 100 Lawyers by The Lawyer magazine. His insight on legal issues has been sought by, amongst others, Sky News, The Evening Standard, Sport Business, Sky Sports News and The Guardian.
RPC
Partner. An IP and technology litigation specialist, Ciara is dual qualified in England & Wales and the Republic of Ireland and has acted in several international disputes.
Having acted in several disputes before the English and Irish Courts, the UK IPO, the ICC and CIETAC, Ciara's practice also has a significant international element and sees her advising clients on multi-jurisdictional disputes across the full range of IP rights including trade marks / passing off, copyright, patents, design rights, breach of confidential information and IP licence disputes.
On the non-contentious side, Ciara supports clients on brand protection and counterfeit issues, IP projects and licensing, sponsorship/endorsement arrangements, franchising and commercial contracts. She also provides specialist advice on IP and technology acquisitions and disposals.
Clients range from luxury goods, retail and food to FMCG, technology, media, life sciences, insurance and financial services.
Ciara has been published in several leading journals including Managing IP, e-Commerce Law and Policy, SCL, LexisNexis and ILO and regularly speaks at client and industry conferences. Ciara is a member of the editorial team that produces the annual TerraLex Cross-Border Copyright Guide.
RPC
Partner and Head of RPC's IP and Technology Group and the Retail and Sport sector groups. Jeremy has extensive experience in those areas advising on disputes, advisory matters and transactions. Much of his practice has an international flavour, including worldwide transactions and leading complex international litigation and arbitrations. Jeremy has also spent time on secondment at a major retailer.
Jeremy's work examples include: authoring the much publicised report into Sports Direct related working practices; large-scale IT disputes; advising the successful parties in the much publicised cases of: Jeff Blue v Mike Ashley (High Court - contract); Leofelis v Lonsdale Sports Ltd (Court of Appeal - licensing arrangements); Champagne Louis Roederer v J Garcia Carrion S.A (High Court - trade mark and passing off); significant transactional deals; international arbitrations including in relation to breach of contract and trade mark issues within franchise arrangements; acting for a Premiership football club in relation to HMRC investigations/litigation; sponsorship and endorsement agreements for major international sporting events; sports regulatory (including advising national governing sports bodies and in relation to national and international football rules and regulation).
RPC
Partner and Head of Corporate. Karen Hendy is an insightful and pragmatic Partner and leads RPC's Corporate practice.
Regularly acting for both public (listed) and privately held companies, Karen supports clients undertaking a broad range of corporate transactions, including public and private M&A, and equity capital markets work.
She also provides advice on corporate law and governance issues. Karen has particular expertise in the retail sector.
Karen was also featured in The Lawyer Hot 100 list for 2018.
Karen has been recognised as Leading Individual for Retail and Consumer by The Legal 500 UK (2021).
Addleshaw Goddard
Andrew is a corporate partner, specialising in UK and international mergers and acquisitions and is also Head of our firm wide Retail & Consumer Sector Group. He has been named in the Lawyer's prestigious 'Hot 100' 2016 list for his work in advising retail and consumer clients on their strategic objectives in Europe and also for developing an Africa iPad app, which provides legal guidance on investing in Africa His clients include Britvic, Diageo, Harper Collins, IAG/British Airways, McBride, Royal Mail Group, Sainsbury's Supermarkets, Schwan Food Company, Tate & Lyle, Valmont and William Hill. Recent transactions include advising: Associated British Ports on the sale of its interest in Southampton Container Terminal to DP World BA on various matters including its disposal of the BA Connect business to Flybe and the restructuring of the NATS shareholding arrangements Britvic on its acquisition of Brazillian company Empresa Brasilerira de Bebidas e Alimentos (Ebba) Diageo on transactions in various jurisdictions including the sale of Gleneagles, the formation and break up of various interlinked joint ventures with Heineken and Namibia Breweries in Southern Africa, the acquisition of Serengeti Breweries in Tanzania and the acquisition of Meta Abo Brewery in Ethiopia Royal Mail Group on its online store launch on Alibaba's emarketplace and acquisition of the e-courier business Sainsbury's Supermarkets on its Netto JV with Dansk Supermarket and the Mobile by Sainsbury's JV with Vodafone (and various other matters) Schwan's Group on the divestment of its European business (including the Chicago Town pizza brand) to Dr. Oetker Tate & Lyle on the break up of its pan-European bulk ingredients joint venture with ADM Various listed companies on governance and other projects in Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria He has also recently run in-market training programmes for in-house lawyers across Africa one of which won The Lawyer's 'Best Service Quality Innovation' award 2016 and the other being recognised by the FT Innovation Awards as a key innovation and risk management tool for a major client.
Dentons
Scott is the Head of Dentons' Corporate and Commercial division. He focuses on commercial contracts, IT and data privacy law and is directory-ranked in all of these areas. Scott is particularly well known for his work in the retail sector, where he advises a number of the UK's best known names on the high street.
Scott is ranked in Chambers 2017 as a leading practitioner for commercial contracts, which recognizes he "has considerable experience across a range of commercial matters. He has a reputation for handling strategically significant large-scale agreements for market-leading and brand-name clients." Scott has acted for many household names on large-scale commercial deals involving supply of goods and services, joint ventures, distribution agreements, transportation, logistics, marketing agreements, design and manufacturing agreements and consultancy agreements.
Scott is a member of Dentons' Band 1-ranked IT and Telecoms team, with an emphasis on IT, outsourcing, payments transactions, software law and the exploitation of databases. He was previously a computer programmer and draws on this background alongside 20 years' experience advising in this field to enable him to share with his clients not just technical knowledge but also insight into what is contractually achievable in the market. Scott focuses especially closely on deals involving payments, cloud services, Software as a Service (SaaS), agile development and deals with major technology vendors and has a keen understanding of current market positions. He is also very experienced in deals for major projects and IT outsourcings.
Scott has particular capabilities in data privacy law and is one of the partners in Dentons' Band 1-ranked team. He has advised numerous data controllers and data subjects on all aspects of data privacy, including GDPR compliance, data breach, cyber risk, global data transfers, customer data and consents, data sharing, sale and purchase of databases, subject access rights, employee monitoring and data protection policies. Scott is recognized in directories "for his focus on practical solutions" (Legal 500 2017).
Next Generation Partners
Junior partners with significant recognition from clients and peers in the market and key roles on multiple matters.
DLA Piper
Leading associates
Rising stars with regular involvement in their team's key work, and recognition from peers or clients as being ones to watch.
Clyde & Co