Foot Anstey

Hannah Batten

Hannah helps clients to make the most of their intellectual property (IP) rights and other IP related opportunities, by providing strategic advice on the ownership, protection and exploitation of IP rights. Hannah has particular expertise in drafting and negotiating IP licences, but also advises on a wide range of other non-contentious and transactional IP agreements and other matters. This includes assignments, collaborations, franchising and sponsorship arrangements, as well as IP issues arising in M&A, joint ventures and investments. She regularly advises on IP ownership within a corporate group structure, and has significant experience of advising charities on trade mark ownership and licensing arrangements. Hannah takes a very human approach to her advice, and has been described by her clients as ‘approachable’, ‘diligent’ and ‘tenacious’. She finds earning the trust and confidence of clients the most rewarding aspect of her work, as this leads to genuinely collaborative relationships and the ability to add real value through a deeper understanding of the wider circumstances and personalities (as well as the commercial priorities) involved in a particular situation or deal.

Lara Borrett-Lynch

Lara is the firm’s Head of Affordable Housing. She has over 20 years’ experience in residential development acting for Housing Associations, national and regional housebuilders and local authorities. Her key area of interest is the provision of affordable housing and she’s passionate about working with clients to satisfy the ever increasing need for quality housing. Lara looks to add value to her clients by being an extension of their team. She takes time to understand the aims and objectives of each transaction in order to achieve these.

Rachel Brooks

Rachel is a Partner in the Private Wealth team who advises clients on tax and estate planning, with a particular niche in rural and landed estates. She can help her clients with drafting a Will, tax planning and administration of complex estates, particularly where there are succession issues. Rachel looks at the strategic planning of assets through the generations for landed estate clients and Farming families. Recently, she has advised on how to do this using business property relief and agricultural property relief to reduce inheritance tax bills and so avoid the need to sell part of the estate. She has also helped clients with creating trust structures and family offices for the protection of assets through successive generations. Rachel can provide sensitive and pragmatic advice to families on the law of mental capacity as well, which many families now find themselves needing to understand when it comes to supporting a loved one with their affairs.

Fiona Campbell-White

Fiona is a leading expert in the field of trust and probate litigation. She has advised on a full range of contentious trust and probate issues for over 19 years, with a decade of general litigation experience prior to that. Fiona prides herself on having a proactive, yet pragmatic, approach to her work. She looks to achieve a swift, advantageous resolution to disputes in a manner that is cost-effective for her clients. She aims to resolve matters out of court, but will not shy away from active litigation where appropriate. Fiona has particular expertise in advising charities and understands the specific issues charities need to consider in the context of trust and probate disputes. Fiona’s charity client base ranges from most large national charities to a multitude of small local ones.

Helen Dickie

Helen has extensive experience in the full spectrum of real estate disputes, working for a range of commercial clients including institutional landlords, household-name occupational tenants, and developers. Helen has a particular focus on the retail sector, and extensive experience in telecoms, having spent five years immediately prior to joining Foot Anstey working in-house for two of the UK’s largest telecoms operators. During that time she had conduct of a significant portfolio of litigation, including the first appealed case under the Electronic Communications Code. Through both her private practice and in-house experience, Helen has experience in a range of Courts, including the Court of Appeal. Helen spent a number of years practicing in the City, and has conducted a number of reported cases, both at first instance and on appeal, including the largest reported residential enfranchisement case and a key case on landlord’s consent, as well as a significant number of recent telecoms cases. Helen is known for tenaciously pursuing commercial and practical solutions to disputes, and has had excellent results using mediation and ADR.

Emma Earp

Emma is a Partner in the firm’s Banking and Finance team. Emma has over a decade’s worth of experience working with corporate borrowers and lenders on regional, national and international transactions. Emma trained and qualified into the Banking and Finance department of the leading City firm Travers Smith. She has experience in a wide range of finance transactions, including acquisition finance, property finance, project finance and general corporate lending. Emma is familiar with bank standard form documents and Loan Market Association documentation and regularly advises on security structures and intercreditor arrangements.

Marianne Ironside

Marianne is an Senior Associate in the Planning and Environment Team. She has significant experience advising on a range of planning matters with a particular focus on the residential development sector. Her expertise includes strategic planning advice, drafting and negotiating Planning Agreements, undertaking and planning due diligence in respect of complex transactions and advising on the intricacies of the Community Infrastructure Levy. Marianne has considerable experience working with housebuilders, retirement living providers and hoteliers as well as advising retail developers, banks and investors.

Celine Lecomte

Celine had over 18 years’ experience advising on trust administration, taxation of trust, restructuring and winding up in the UK. Her main area of work includes advising trustees and beneficiaries, managing a variety of family, personal injury, grant making charitable and employee benefits trusts.

Andrew Mackie

Andrew is a Managing Associate at the firm and has over 14 years’ experience in advising charities and other not-for-profits on governance and regulatory matters. He deals extensively with the formation and registration of corporate charities, charitable trusts and other community-focused structures, and advises their governing bodies on their duties, roles and responsibilities. He regularly carries out constitutional and governance reviews, and provides training to trustees at all levels. Andrew has acted on several charity mergers and has assisted with the charity law aspects of several charity acquisitions. He also advises on contracts between charities and commercial entities, charity fundraising and trading and intellectual property matters. Andrew acts for charities and not-for-profits of all sizes and forms, including companies limited by guarantee, charitable incorporated organisations (CIOs), charitable trusts, Royal Charter bodies and statutory corporations. He has particular experience with arts organisations, armed forces charities and charities in the healthcare sector. Andrew is a former trustee and chairman of the London Philharmonic Choir, as part of which he sang first tenor for many years. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, theatre and music.

Adam McKenna

Adam advises private equity-backed portfolio businesses on all aspects of their growth and investment strategies, with particular expertise in bolt-on acquisitions and the execution of buy-and-build programmes. He has significant experience supporting businesses in the technology, financial services and education sectors. As a key member of the transactional and integration team, Adam works closely with major client businesses backed by August Equity, Livingbridge, Epiris, ICG and BGF. He regularly advises companies at every stage of their lifecycle – from start-ups seeking SEIS/EIS funding and angel investment, through to established portfolio businesses pursuing M&A opportunities. Accolades Team winners of the Regional Legal Adviser of the Year at the Real Deals Private Equity Awards in 2020 and 2024

Charlene Nelson

Charlene is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney in our Intellectual Property team with over 10 years’ experience in the field. She assists clients in navigating through the complexities of trade mark and design right registration procedures around the world. In particular, she helps clients obtain a balanced and cost-effective portfolio of rights to enable them to support their strategic and commercial objectives and place them in the best position to avoid and resolve disputes quickly. Further, she regularly conducts clearance searches in the UK and elsewhere to ensure that new brands are free to use. Over the years, she has worked with a variety of different sized clients across different sectors and enjoys getting to know clients and understanding their businesses in order to provide targeted and bespoke advice. Charlene is an active member of ECTA and represents the UK on the Publications Committee.

Kate New

Kate is a Partner and Head of the Property Litigation team at Foot Anstey. She has extensive experience across various sectors including retail, telecoms and developers. Kate finds commercial solutions to all manner of disputes concerning clients real estate. She has expertise in telecoms litigation having worked on the key leading test cases. Kate also has considerable experience working on a broad variety of disputes where clients need solutions that will often involve the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Kate also has extensive experience in a range of courts including the Supreme Court. Kate has a broad range of experience in both private practice and the corporate world following two years in-house at a leading telecoms operator. Kate is dedicated to mitigating the challenges and securing opportunities for businesses within the telecoms space through strategic solutions. She has a particular interest in portfolio work for real estate clients, where solutions need to be tailored to consider not just the subject property but also how it impacts their broader real estate needs.

Carol Phillips

Carol is a partner in our Commercial Property team. She specialises in acquiring, managing and disposing of real estate whether through freehold or leasehold transactions, and supports retail clients with their property portfolios and helping them to plan for the future. Despite all of the challenges faced by retailers today Carol is a firm believer that the public will still want to be able to access compelling retail space in the future and we will never be content to only shop online. Having spent time in-house managing a large and diverse portfolio Carol empathises with the position that clients are in and uses this to tailor her advice. She also has extensive experience of managing teams to support clients as an extension of their in house function providing commercial legal advice that is focused on helping clients achieve their investment aims. Work highlights include supporting a number of clients through headquarter moves, and being part of the team that built our Real Estate Asset Management platform, which allows clients to access the up to date status of their real estate matters in real time.

Hayley Steel

Hayley is an experienced transactional construction lawyer and leads Foot Anstey’s national Non-Contentious Construction team. Hayley has extensive experience delivering a diverse portfolio of construction and engineering projects across Foot Anstey’s core sectors. She specialises in working with developers and housebuilders, with a particular focus on the later living and retirement sectors, as well as delivering major infrastructure, clean energy, and nuclear projects. She provides expert guidance to a variety of clients with differing stakeholder roles and risk profiles, on projects such as large energy and infrastructure developments, international data centres, commercial and mixed-use schemes, housing, and regeneration projects. Hayley is well-versed in both bespoke and standard form construction contracts, including the JCT, NEC and FIDIC forms. Hayley also has considerable co-counsel experience, providing specialist construction support to external legal teams on a number of high value, high profile, complex asset-based transactions. Hayley trained, qualified and spent over a decade at a leading international firm, based within the City of London, working on a breadth of domestic and international projects. Hayley then spent several years at a national UK firm, where, prior to joining Foot Anstey, she led the “responsive, pragmatic, and efficient” non-contentious construction team.

Katie Taylor

Kate is a member of our commercial real estate team and acts for both owners and occupiers across all aspects of acquisition, disposal and management of retail, office and industrial space. She has considerable experience in acting for investor landlords with large property portfolios in the retail and leisure sector. Always looking for ways to provide innovate solutions for clients, Kate has recently worked with a major retail client to improve and streamline our workflow with them. By having a full understanding of the particular need of the client, she was able to think creatively to deliver a legal solution that works for them.

Carol Ward

Carol is a Senior Associate in our Private Client team who can advise individuals and families on strategic tax and succession planning through the generations. Carol has worked with estate owners, farmers and high net-worth clients throughout her career as a solicitor and has a keen understanding of their legal needs and how to help them achieve their goals. Carol regularly drafts Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney for her clients and advises them on the creation of trusts, both during their lifetime and under their Wills. Carol’s knowledge of landed estate matters means she can help clients manage estates whether they are privately owned or in a trust. She can offer clients her experience of dealing with applications under the Variation of Trusts Act 1958 and the creation of a Heritage Maintenance Fund as part of long-term tax planning. Clients also seek Carol’s advice on all aspects of administering an estate, especially when dealing with complex issues and highly valuable or sentimentally important assets.

Marina Wickens

Marina acts for housebuilders (both national and regional) and Registered Providers on all matters relating to the acquisition and promotion of sites for residential development. The work she is involved with ranges from straightforward subject to planning deals, options and promotion agreements to complex joint ventures and collaboration agreements and all related matters. With a keen interest in housing, she aims to establish great working relationships with her clients by understanding their business needs and helping them achieve the outcomes they want by delivering an excellent and efficient service.