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Alan is head of the firm’s Retail Financial Services sector and provides regulatory and commercial advice to a diverse range of clients including financial advisers, investment managers, platforms, insurance brokers, credit providers and brokers and Islamic banks. Alan is proud to have built a cross-disciplinary team which collaborates and uses its deep sector knowledge to ensure that our clients always receive focused sector-specific advice – enabling our clients to achieve their goals whilst managing their regulatory risk effectively.
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Alexandra specialises in advising clients who operate in the retail and consumer sector on contract and consumer law. Her extensive in-house experience means she understands the demands that stakeholders can put on an in-house legal function and how to manage expectations and prioritise tasks based on business risk and strategic importance. Always looking to achieve clients’ goals whilst working collaboratively in a positive environment, she takes the time to understand each client’s needs and mirrors their culture and ethos in her communication style in order to become an extension of their team. Alexandra also acts as interim General Counsel for key clients, predominantly in the retail and leisure sector, whilst they source a more permanent solution. These roles mean she works directly with each business’ key stakeholders and helps to manage business risks whilst supporting new projects, which drive growth and revenue for these organisations.
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Alexandra specialises in resolving disputes about inheritance and trusts for individuals, charities and corporate trustees. She seeks to identify clients’ objectives early on and then works with them to design a strategy to achieve or even exceed those objectives. Much of Alexandra’s work involves untangling multiple issues, identifying problems that require resolution with other parties and offering practical solutions. Alexandra finds it rewarding to support clients during a difficult episode in their lives and to secure their desired outcome. Alexandra works closely with her colleagues in our UK and International Tax and Trusts teams, Agriculture team and Mental Capacity team, drawing on their complementary experience to provide a seamless service to clients.
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Aliki is a Senior Associate in our Energy, Projects, Infrastructure & Construction team. She is a dual-qualified lawyer (Greece, England and Wales). Aliki spent three years as the General Counsel of WElink Energy Europe, focussing on the development, construction, financing and refinancing of large scale, unsubsidized solar pv projects in Europe. She has significant experience in advising clients on the acquisition, development and disposal of renewable energy assets, including onshore wind turbines and has produced a number of articles on a variety of environmental law matters.
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Andrew is a Legal Director in the firm’s Intellectual Property team. Andrew advises a range of clients on Intellectual Property matters and has a particular specialism in Anti-Counterfeiting. Over the course of his career Andrew has dealt with and advised on various intellectual property matters through different legal solutions. He has significant experience in conducting trade mark, passing off, copyright, design right and patent litigation as well as advising on breach of privacy and breach of confidence claims. Andrew has previously been ranked as a ‘Next Generation Partners’ in Legal500 and ‘Up and Coming’ in Chambers.
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Angharad’s work focuses on employment tribunals (particularly respondent work) and has particular experience of defending disability, race and age discrimination claims, for clients in the public and private sectors. Angharad has also worked with the team to successfully resolve a multi-million pound TUPE information and consultation claim. Angharad frequently provides corporate support (including private equity) and advises a range of clients from a variety of industry sectors on contentious and non-contentious matters across a wide range of employment issues. This includes advising on disciplinary and grievance procedures, redundancies and drafting a number of employment documents such as Director’s Service Agreements and Settlement Agreements. She takes the time to understand her client’s business to ensure that the advice given is tailored accordingly and is practical and proportionate to what they are seeking to achieve.
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Anna is a partner in our Private Wealth and HNWI team. She provides tax and estate planning advice to individuals, including entrepreneurs, land owners, farmers or the independently wealthy. Her key focus includes the drawing together of a family’s private client and tax requirements, which involves the drafting of tax and succession advice, trusts, wills and LPAs, and any other documentation that they require. In addition, she also helps clients with cross border wills and probate and the acquisition of French real estate. Anna’s main interest is tax planning, and she says that she enjoys understanding clients’ circumstances and helping them to find ways to protect, preserve and ultimately pass on their patrimony in the most tax efficient manner possible. A particular career highlight involved Anna advising three generations of a family on succession for their property business, including tax advice, Wills, LPAs, shareholder’s agreement and two separate probates.
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Anna leads the firm’s charity property practice which advises charities, social enterprises, RP’s and healthcare organisations in solving property related problems including title issues, freehold disputes, commercial and residential landlord and tenant disputes, business leases renewals and property related professional negligence. Anna is passionate about the not-for-profit sector and is driven by making a positive difference to the organisations she represents. Anna also applies her deep subject matter expertise in solving complex property issues to assist the firm’s receivership clients. Anna approaches her work with clients as a partnership – working closely with them and other parties involved to get the right result. Often this means ensuring that property problems are resolved in an efficient manner so that funds are received more quickly or at a higher level of recovery.
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Annalisa provides advice to a variety of businesses on a broad range of legal and business affairs including drafting, negotiating and completing a wide range of commercial agreements. She has a special interest in intellectual property and technology. Annalisa fully understands the challenges her clients face and she strives to help them overcome these. She is able to draw on significant in-house experience from her previous roles, in particular her last in-house role where she provided support to a variety of marketing and advertising agencies for a US publicly listed group of companies. This experience gives her excellent commercial awareness, an understanding of how clients approach risk mitigation and an ability to deliver legal advice in her clients’ language.
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Brian specialises in the procurement of complex construction and engineering projects across the road, energy, real estate and health sectors. He also has expertise in the Space and Ports sectors. He has particular expertise in advising on contracting strategy and dispute avoidance to enable clients to achieve the project outcomes they wish. He has many career highlights over the past 20 years, but recent examples include advising Great Ormond Street Hospital on its major Phase 4 redevelopment, advising Goonhilly Earth Station on the upgrade of its estate and acting as a strategic advisor for many of the region’s key highways and regeneration projects.
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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.
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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.
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Catherine is highly experienced at resolving commercial disputes of all kinds, many of which are complex, high value and/or commercially sensitive. Her practice encompasses breach of contract claims, director/shareholder disputes, public procurement claims and negligence. She acts for corporate and individual clients in both the private and public sector, including utilities and logistics companies, local Government departments, retailers, individual shareholders/directors, technology companies and partnerships. Catherine has considerable experience of litigating in the various divisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal, and also regularly acts for clients in arbitrations and mediations. Catherine recognises that no two disputes are the same, and she works with her clients to understand their commercial objectives and then build a strategy designed to achieve those objectives as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
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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.
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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.
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Christian is a Partner working in the energy and infrastructure sector and heads our Planning and Environment Team. He advises clients involved in energy transition to zero and low carbon technologies and on environmental and climate change issues and opportunities. Christian also works with clients across the developer, private equity, ports and space & satellite sectors on a full range of planning, environment and infrastructure consenting and associated matters. Christian brings to this work his specialist knowledge as a chartered town planner which can be invaluable to clients in a number of situations.
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Claire is an employment partner with significant experience advising large national and international companies having worked for a large international law firm for over 10 years. Working closely with clients to understand their aims and objectives, Claire provides commercial and practical advice, helping clients to manage the employment aspects of complex transactions and internal restructuring exercises, as well as advising on the TUPE implications of business transfers and outsourcing arrangements. Claire is recognised for her responsiveness and down-to-earth approach and her ability to cut through complex areas of law to provide clear and straightforward advice. Claire also plays a lead role in the firm’s Financial Services Sector, with particular expertise advising Private Equity backed portfolio companies and Retail Financial Services’ clients, regularly advising on board level employment and strategic issues, such as senior exits and integration projects. A highlight for Claire was working on Ensono’s $405 million international acquisition of Wipro’s Hosted Data Center Services business. Claire advised on the employment implications of the stock and asset deal in the UK, including advising on the TUPE information and consultation process, as well as project managing the employment advice across eight jurisdictions.
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Danielle’s practice is focused on the agricultural and rural business sector. She works on rural business and agricultural disputes such as partnership disputes, landlord and tenant claims, issues relating to restrictive covenants, proprietary estoppel claims and a range of Agricultural Holdings Act matters. She also advises landowners on the Electronic Communications Code. Danielle acts for a wide range of rural clients including landowners, landed estates and others with an interest in the rural land market such as major banks and property developers. Danielle has a thorough understanding of the rural market that her clients operate in enabling her to offer practical solutions that work. A highlight in her career to date has been using this insight in one of the first test cases to go through the Tribunal after the introduction of the new Electronic Communications Code in 2017.
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Dickon is a dispute resolution solicitor who leads major disputes and dispute avoidance processes for national and international clients. His focus is on resolving disputes arising out of significant energy, infrastructure and construction projects. Dickon’s 14 years of experience includes both high value commercial disputes and disputes in construction and engineering. That experience allows him to advise on a wide variety of issues that might arise on a project – from advising on potential issues at the outset; through assisting with management of the project and resolving problems as they arise; to project threatening disputes and final resolution of major litigation. Alongside construction/engineering issues Dickon has strong experience advising on professional negligence and fraud recovery. Dickon frequently advises on contractual points on commercial and bespoke contracts as well as on standard forms including FIDIC, NEC, JCT, IChemE and IET. Dickon runs disputes though ADR, adjudication, the courts and arbitration. Dickon specialises in disputes in the energy sector and in particular battery storage and solar projects. Dickon has been involved in a number of the early disputes in the battery storage space, which to date have included financing issues and catastrophic failure as well as delay and availability problems.
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Douglas is our Technical Tax and Trust Counsel with over 30 years’ experience in estates, tax and trusts law. He joined Foot Anstey from Thrings in April 2020, having previously been a partner at Blake Morgan for most of his career. Qualifying initially as a barrister and subsequently re-qualifying as a solicitor, Douglas has considerable experience at advising on how to make the most of available tax reliefs and trust structures when dealing with property, business shares and other assets. His clients appreciate his clear and sensible advice on questions around stamp taxes, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and many other aspects of the UK’s taxation regime as they relate to the purchase, sale or gifting of assets. Douglas has administered a number of highly complicated estates, including those with assets in multiple jurisdictions, and is well placed to support families with a deceased relative’s affairs. With a special interest in heritage property, Douglas is also highly knowledgeable of the law in this niche area. Clients regularly seek his counsel on how to manage heritage assets and benefit in particular from his experience of dealing with HMRC’s heritage property team. Douglas also has experience in drafting prepaid funeral plan trusts for funeral directors who wish to establish funeral plan businesses and ensuring that the trust provisions are consistent with the plan agreement and that both documents are so far as possible drafted in the most tax efficient way. Douglas is also able to provide any additional advice that may subsequently be required in connection with the administration of the trust (including an application for membership of the Funeral Planning Authority) . Douglas also provides UK tax advice to clients who are resident and/or domiciled abroad (i.e. individuals, trustees of offshore trusts and person’s responsible for other offshore entities).
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Duncan is a Partner in the corporate team advising on M&A, investments, JVs and delivering exit and/or succession plans including by way of management buy-out. Duncan has particular experience of deals in the Energy and Developer sectors. He regularly acts on transactions with an international element, in particular with European, US and Canadian counter-parties. Duncan is driven by building long term relationships with clients to help them achieve their ultimate aspirations, frequently working with other advisers to create the client’s desired transaction. His collaborative approach ensures the best deal for the client is delivered in a cost effective way within the appropriate timescale.
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Edward leads the firm’s farms, estates and rural land practice. He has extensive experience in a wide range of litigation including commercial litigation, professional negligence claims, property and regulatory-related disputes. He has acted for public bodies, institutional clients, companies, charities, landed estates, partnerships and private individuals. With the aim of giving high quality commercial advice, he carefully listens to the client’s aims and concerns at the outset and then develops a clear strategy to resolve the dispute they are dealing with.
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Emily is a specialist matrimonial and divorce lawyer who can advise clients on a variety of areas relating to family law. A Senior Associate in our Exeter office, Emily joined Foot Anstey in April 2020 from Ashfords. Clients approach Emily for her advice as it relates to the various stages of a relationship, including cohabitation issues for non-married couples, married couples that are considering a separation and what affect this may have on their situations, to couples that have separated and are seeking a divorce. In particular, she has over eight years’ experience in helping clients to separate finances and other assets, including property, businesses, pensions and trusts following a divorce. Clients also approach her for help with drafting and concluding pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements in which she advises on preserving their important assets, such as property, in the event of a future divorce. Emily also works with many clients who have children and want to make sure their best interests are protected during a divorce or separation. She can help parents resolve disagreements about a wide range of issues such as where a child should live and what time they should spend with a parent or carer. In addition, Emily has experience dealing with cross-border and inter-jurisdictional issues, for example where one parent lives or is moving abroad. She also advises grandparents and other family members who have an interest in a child’s wellbeing in this regard.
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Emma is a Senior Associate in the Corporate Team. She deals with a wide range of corporate work, including mergers and acquisitions. Emma’s focus is on advising private equity backed portfolio businesses, with a particular specialism in bolt on acquisitions and implementing buy and build strategies. She is also a practiced advisor to the financial services sector and the retail sector, having acted for institutional and investor clients on national and international deals in these industries.
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Emma is a member of the firms Charity team and deals with a range of legacy matters. She advises charities on a range of legacy related matters. The majority of her work involves advising charities that have been left a gift in a will or trust and ensuring that the charity gets to use the money for its charitable purpose. She uses proactive, pragmatic thinking to unpick complicated scenarios to enable a release of cash allowing clients to fund their charitable objectives, such work relates to both legacy disputes and legacy administration. Emma also advises charities in relation to Will and Trust disputes and complex issues where the charity requires advice on its position as Executor/Trustee and/or Beneficiary. She also acts for charities as a legacy consultant undertaking legacy administration. She has gained invaluable experience working in-house on secondment with national charities as such Cancer Research UK, National Trust and Save the Children. This experience enables her to provide solution focused advice, based on her understanding of the issues at the heart of the organisation and the intricate connections between charity law, legacies and the importance of building and maintaining relationships with third parties. She oversees the day to day running of the legacy administration team at Foot Anstey. As the team has evolved and due to her in-house experience, Emma’s role also looks beyond the legal tasks associated with legacies and she is often called upon in an advisory capacity to provide support around accounting practices, risk management and procedures/processes for legacy teams. She has also carried out strategic reviews and audits which are tailored to client’s needs. Emma works closely with the firm’s dispute resolution, private wealth and mental capacity teams to provide a seamless service to clients. She is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists (ACTAPS). She sits on the branch committee for STEP West of England (Chair) and is also a Non-Council Member Representative (Wales & West) on the England & Wales Regional Committee and the Chair. Emma has recently joined STEP’s Professional Development Committee.
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Huw is a partner in both Foot Anstey and Enable Law, where his work involves helping clients with complex, life changing injuries, with a particular focus on the brain. Huw specialises in cases of great complexity which are often valued in many millions of pounds. Huw’s clients are from all parts of the country and he also represents clients who have had serious accidents abroad. His expertise means he is often asked to take over cases that have become too complex for less experienced firms. Huw can bring together comprehensive rehabilitative packages of care and support for clients which help them achieve their maximum potential following their injury.
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Ian is head of our projects, infrastructure and construction team. He specialises in transactional legal aspects of major national and international projects, their procurement, construction, delivery and operation, as well as their funding, sale and refinancing, supporting you at all stages of the lifecycle of a constructed asset. Prior to joining Foot Anstey, Ian was a partner at an international law firm and based in the City of London, where he headed up a team working on some of the UK’s largest construction, infrastructure and energy projects. With his extensive experience/expertise, Ian can provide you with strategic, commercially-astute advice on your contracting structures, finance and procurement methodology and can also support you on contract drafting and in negotiations, ensuring successful delivery of your projects and giving you the experience of having an expert not just advising you, but being a part of your team. Ian has over 35 years’ industry experience, including senior management and technical experience outside of the legal sector as a quantity surveyor and a contracts manager. Driven by this strong, industry-based operational understanding of contracting and delivery issues and a thorough understanding of the challenges that high-value, technically complex, long-term projects might present you with, Ian can listen to you and understand the issues you face and help you put those issues in the context of your legal and contractual responsibilities. Because Ian knows that the first step towards managing your risk is for you to understand it. Ian is proud to have been part of the team that was a finalist in the categories of Leadership and Pioneer at the 2018 British Renewable Energy Awards. He is also an externally recognised expert in his subject area, having spoken at conferences held by the European Construction Institute and by the Engineering & Construction Risk Institute, as well as at events organised by other industry professional bodies, such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
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Imam is a member of the real estate team and an Islamic finance specialist with considerable experience in dealing with a range of high-value and complex investment, finance and development transactions. An active participant in the Islamic Finance market for over 15 years, he has developed a broad Islamic Finance practice advising investors and financial institutions on a range of shariah compliant products and structures.
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James is a partner in our dispute resolution team. A specialist in banking and financial services litigation, his work often centres on a range of customer-led disputes which generate reputational threat against a highly regulated backdrop. With a determined approach to achieving the best commercial outcome to disputes, alongside maintaining down to earth handling of sensitive matters such as mis-selling, fraud and SME disputes, he works on matters with industry-wide relevance. As the economic climate tightens, complex recoveries, insolvency related/led disputes and acting for receivers is, again, a growing area of work. As a consequence of his financial services sector focus, James has a naturally developed a practice and growing reputation in fraud (prevention, investigation and recoveries). This includes acting for victims, insolvency practitioners or the institutions seeking to protect their customers. He is the Chair of the South West Fraud Forum and also sits on the UK Fraud Forum. James delivers regular industry-focussed updates through the Lenders’ Litigation Forum and recent training sessions include considering the hot-topics of Quincecare and secret commissions in broker relationships.
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Jessica is Head of the firm’s Family Team and the Private Wealth Sector. She provides advice on the consequences of relationship breakdown for married and cohabiting couples, pre-nuptial agreements and wealth protection within a relationship context. Jessica is trained as a collaborative lawyer with a focus on alternative dispute resolution for families. Driven by the desire to solve problems and deliver solutions, particularly for those clients who may have complicated finances, she helps to deliver a fair settlement in an amicable divorce process. She also enjoys working with other professional advisors to provide a seamless service to mutual clients. Jessica joined Foot Anstey as a trainee and is proud to have undertaken her journey to Partner within the firm.
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Joanne leads our Restructuring and Insolvency offering collaborating with a broad range of businesses, directors, stakeholders and other professional advisors. Her role is focused on opportunities for turnaround rescue and restructure but also involves managing formal insolvency processes. She works closely with distressed equity and debt investors as well as with turnaround professionals and insolvency practitioners. Joanne is regularly found in the board room providing strategic advice to directors of businesses close to insolvency, particularly around their duties and responsibilities when dealing with distress. She also has significant experience advising stakeholders on managing their risk and exposure to businesses in financial difficulty. Joanne and her team are specialists in the investment bank special administration regime overseeing the return of significant values of client monies and custody assets across a portfolio of these cases. Joanne is proud of the Restructuring and Insolvency Team’s approach and says ‘we always try to be accessible, flexible, responsive and adaptable, seeking to deliver technical advice in a practical yet commercial way, with an ability to innovate and think creatively in order to deliver the best solutions for our clients’. Joanne enjoys contributing to the wider business communities in which she works and is a national director of TMA UK and the Insolvency Lawyers’ Association and more locally a board member of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership. Joanne is also passionate about the importance of business inclusion and diversity and supports Foot Anstey’s work in this area.
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Joanne is an employment lawyer specialising in providing practical strategic advice and dealing with complex employment tribunal litigation including unfair dismissal, discrimination and whistleblowing on behalf of large multisite clients. She also has a range of commercial experience, including transactional, strategic and day-to-day human resources support and has developed a niche for delivering management development training programmes in an innovative way. She advises on a wide range of both contentious and non-contentious matters including advising employers on issues such as complex organisational restructures, enforcement of restrictive covenants in the High Court, corporate support for all aspects of acquisitions and disposals including the effect of TUPE and regularly provides practical advice on redundancy programmes – always taking into account a client’s commercial considerations. Joanne also specialises in providing employment law support in the restructuring and insolvency sphere, working seamlessly with the wider team. Joanne is regularly called upon by a number of clients considering change management programmes including business reorganisations and bringing about cultural change. Joanne has delivered a number of cultural change programmes, including some around diversity and inclusion, to assist companies to get the best out of their talent and build a more sustainable workforce.
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Real Estate John is a leading member of Foot Anstey LLP’s real estate team, delivering a broad range of high value, complex commercial property projects, with a particular focus on corporate real estate and large-scale development and infrastructure projects. Work highlights include: Acting for a local authority to acquire over 100 acres of land for a major mixed use “Garden Village” development of 3,500 new homes, shops, community facilities, schools, care homes, open space and a sports stadium. Acting for TClarke PLC in the relocation of their head office to the iconic Gherkin building in the City of London. Supporting Teignbridge District Council with the acquisition and long term management arrangements for over 100 acres of land designated as “Suitable Alternative Natural Green Space” to support the development of a large mixed use urban extension at South West Exeter. Leading the Foot Anstey team advising an international charity on the acquisition of land and development of a £110m education and leisure venue. Advising on the redevelopment of an historic airfield to create a mixed use creative arts and business hub. Space and Satellite John has a passion for space and leads Foot Anstey’s Space and Satellite team, supporting space and satellite sector businesses and organisations in both the upstream and the downstream segments. Work highlights include: Leading the Foot Anstey LLP team advising Spaceport Cornwall on the legal and regulatory framework for launch under the Space Industry Act 2018, delivering guidance on state aid, legal structures, planning and environmental, property and infrastructure and health & safety, in preparation for the first sovereign launch of spacecraft from UK soil in 2022. Supporting an Argentinian space tech business set up their new operations and expansion into the UK. Client relationship partner for AeroSpace Cornwall, working with the wider Foot Anstey Space and Satellite team to support over 36 space and aerospace businesses with bespoke IP, data, commercial, corporate, real estate, infrastructure and employment advice. Contributing to the West of England Space Strategy. A member of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Data and Space Industry Advisory Group.
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Karen is a member of the Firm’s Management Board and is responsible for the leadership of a team of over 45 lawyers within the Firm’s commercial and employment teams. Karen has been particularly involved in developing the firm’s employment, pensions and business immigration team as a team of advisory specialists within the business group. Karen’s approach is to think about the bigger picture and advise clients on the best way to achieve their goals. Her main experience lies in complex people strategy and HR risk management as well as bespoke advice on the full range of people issues arising in business. This ranges from large scale restructuring and redundancy, TUPE, transactions and workforce integration and high value employment litigation. Karen also often advises clients’ boards on a broad spectrum of business issues.
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Kate is a Managing Associate at the firm and has extensive experience in advising clients on a broad spectrum of commercial property matters, including investment transactions, landlord and tenant work, and property financing. In addition, Kate has particular expertise in commercial development projects, acting for developers, funders, landowners and tenants in relation to developments in sectors as diverse as leisure, retail and logistics to student accommodation and airports. Kate has acted for a number of large funds and investment managers in relation to purchases, forward-fundings, lettings and sales.
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Kate is a senior associate in our Islamic finance practice and has experience in working on a wide variety of real estate-driven banking and finance transactions and multi-tranche development transactions encompassing a wide range of Islamic financing arrangements. She is named in the Legal 500 2023 as a Key Lawyer in Islamic finance in London and described by clients as ‘ very approachable, responsive and knowledgeable.’ Kate advises shariah compliant banks in single property and portfolio acquisitions and refinancing transactions involving commercial and residential assets, often with an offshore element. An example of Kate’s work includes advising Riyad Bank (London Branch) on their single largest real estate financing transaction to date: a £64m shariah-compatible facility used to refinance the UK HQ of an international law firm in Moorgate.
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Katie has spent just under 15 years in the City, gaining experience working on high value lending transactions, acting for UK and international syndicates of banks on a secured and unsecured basis, as well as advising corporate borrowers – whether on general financings or in restructuring situations. She has particular experience in the Nordic region, acting for a number of Nordic banks over the past decade. Katie has also built a practice advising corporate service providers on non-bank lendings, advising facility and security agents and also trustees across a range of capital markets and structured finance products. Katie has a commercial and personable approach and has been listed as a rising star by Legal Business.
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Kutahya is a commercial property lawyer who currently works predominantly for developer and funder clients in the energy sector on solar, storage and other renewable projects. She has dealt with projects from inception through to sale and finance. Kutahya has also recently helped a large telecoms company better understand their property asset portfolio and has extensive experience of acquisition, funding and landlord and tenant work in all asset classes having previously worked for a number of large investment fund clients. Kutahya enjoys being part of her client’s team so she can gain a full understanding of what their commercial drivers are, working collaboratively with clients and tailoring her approach to their commercial goals.
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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.
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Lee is a Senior Associate in our Projects, Construction and Infrastructure team and specialises in dispute avoidance and dispute resolution. He acts for a range of clients including developers, employers, local authorities, contractors, consultants, and sub-contractors. Lee is particularly experienced in leading adjudication proceedings having conducted high value adjudication proceedings across a multitude of issues acting for both the Referring and Responding Party. Lee’s work involves advising on claims for delay, extensions of time, and loss and expense, regularly dealing with issues such as workmanship and design defects, repudiatory breach of contract and termination. Lee also frequently advises on the validity of applications for payment, payment notices and final account disputes. Lee’s expertise includes conducting high value court proceedings in the TCC (including pre-action negotiations), arbitration proceedings and mediation.
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Lucy is a Partner who leads our Legacies team and our Inheritance & Trust Disputes team. Lucy acts for charities and private clients advising on a range of issues relating to disputes arising about estates. For private clients this can be a stressful and emotional time and Lucy and her team help families navigate disputes in a cost effective way to achieve their objectives. Lucy is also known for advising charity legacy teams about all aspects of legacy income including contentious trust and probate matters, legacy administration, charity law and probate. Lucy delivers solutions for clients beyond simple legal advice and is proud to have developed an innovative product called Legacy Accelerator to assist charities to grow their legacy income. As part of that she has recently delivered a collaborative solution to a key charity client to work as an extension of a major national charity’s in house legacy team to manage the unpredictability of the work-levels associated with the administration of their legacy income. Having acted for many large charities, Lucy has a comprehensive track record in the sector and is able to share this experience and insight with her clients and apply it to her advice. The network she has built in her career enables her to make connections between contacts to enable a collaborative approach.
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A key member of our Restructuring & Insolvency team, Lydia advises on all aspects of formal and informal insolvency procedures, including administration and liquidation sales, both buyer and seller side, with particular experience in retail and financial sectors. She regularly works with insolvency practitioners, providing strategic support throughout the insolvency process. Lydia also advises directors on supply chain issues and close down of companies through voluntary strike off or members’ voluntary liquidation processes. She also works on solvent sales, assisting with the turnaround of distressed businesses and restructures. Lydia has practical experience of the investment bank special administration regime. She has assisted with five of the small number of investment firms to enter into special administration following the introduction of this specialist procedure as a result of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Lydia enjoys collaboration and bringing people together across networks. She founded TMA UK NextGen Bristol, a networking organisation focused on running events to connect people at a junior level working in turnaround.
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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.
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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.
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Mark has over 16 years of experience, specialising in high value complex commercial property transactions. Mark’s experience encompasses general commercial property transactions including all aspects of landlord and tenant work, general estate management and the sale and acquisition of freehold and leasehold property. In particular, he has expertise in acting for infrastructure developers and owners in the transport and energy sectors and in dealing with development projects in both the public and private sphere. Mark is also heavily involved in the work the firm is leading in relation to electric vehicles and mobility services.
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Mark leads our Commercial Energy practice at Foot Anstey within our wider Energy, Projects, Infrastructure and Construction team. He specialises in advising on the legal aspects of delivering commercial projects for clients, with particular expertise in relation to clean energy projects. Mark’s expertise extends to solar and wind (both on-shore and off-shore), district heat networks, battery storage projects, nuclear development including new nuclear build and small modular reactors, EVs, energy from waste, carbon capture, geothermal energy and green hydrogen. Mark helps his clients to develop commercially-driven strategies for successful project delivery, agree appropriate contracting models, navigate procurement processes (often within regulated environments) and draft, negotiate and implement project agreements which contain suitable contract terms, incentivisation mechanisms and payment models. He also supports his clients to manage their contracts during delivery and operational phases by helping them to understand and resolve any contractual or operational issues that can often arise. Having undertaken a number of client secondments during his career, Mark has first-hand experience of the challenges that businesses can often face. Mark draws on this experience to help him deliver his advice in a commercial context.
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Matt is head of our Corporate practice, a key part of which is our nationally recognised Private Equity team, which Matt founded and also leads. Our private equity group proudly represents a number of leading UK Private Equity houses and their portfolio companies and recently named winner of the Regional Legal Advisor of the Year 2020 at the Real Deals Private Equity Awards. Private Equity forms a key part of our go-to-market strategy, so is also recognised as a core lead sector for Foot Anstey, as we seek to build deep relationships with Private Equity backed management teams and portfolio companies. Matt also leads our market leading “GRIP” product, which is a tech-enabled solution to streamline and satisfy the core legal and compliance obligations of PE portfolio companies. Matt trained and qualified into the Private Equity department of the leading City firm Travers Smith and prior to joining Foot Anstey, spent several years at Kinmont, a corporate finance boutique in London acknowledged as a leader in advising management teams. Management advisory remains a core part of Matt’s practice. Our Private Equity team is recognised as a specialist in advising PE backed portfolio companies. We have built a significant specialism in undertaking bolt-on and buy-and-build M&A as part of PE backed investment propositions, often with an international element to it.
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Michelle joined the firm in September 2015 after relocating back to her home county of Devon from Bedfordshire. Michelle deals with all aspects of private client work including succession planning and tax advice, but she specialises in the administration of complex estates. Michelle’s work for previous clients has included dealing with Heritage Exemptions, Family Silver in Lieu of IHT, Agricultural Relief, Antiques and International assets. Michelle has more recently developed a Death in Service advice system for companies with benefit schemes, with the aim of being able to offer the trustees guidance for distribution of the benefits due to the family. Michelle is a Director of the Foot Anstey Trust Corporation, where she works alongside other Directors, to agree decisions in relation to estate administrations, court of protection applications, and attorneyships.
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Mike is a partner in Foot Anstey LLP and our sister firm Enable Law, where he works as a medical negligence specialist. Mike is also an Assistant Coroner in the East Midlands, where he is responsible for investigating unnatural deaths and conducting inquests. Mike acted for a group of women injured by the rogue Obstetrician and Gynaecologist Rob Jones, an action which changed medical standards nationwide, and earned him a place in the Lawyer Hot 100.
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Nathan leads the firm’s Retail and Consumer Sector and is responsible for several key client relationships. He is also is responsible for the firm’s geographic profile and approach to working with the communities where we operate, particularly leading the firm’s Bristol presence and its engagement with local business and community initiatives. Specialising in regulatory work he leads on the firm’s multi-disciplinary risk advisory offering, helping to keep clients’ strategy on track with proactive and reactive risk advice they can trust. Nathan advises clients on governance, compliance and the defence of regulatory prosecutions. Nathan’s holistic approach to risk, and ability to join the dots between areas such as legal, reputation, procurement and risk is what helps his clients achieve their goals.
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Paolo is a Partner specialising in technology and data. He is a UK and Hong Kong qualified lawyer with substantial international experience advising clients on digital transformation, data protection, cybersecurity, technology contracting, telecoms, e-commerce and, most recently, navigating new technologies such as A.I. and blockchain. Prior to joining Foot Anstey, Paolo was a partner at an international law firm and based in Hong Kong for 13 years where he advised some of the world’s leading companies in the technology, retail and financial sectors. He has acted for many major global technology companies, particularly cloud and outsourcing service providers. He has a strong focus on the Retail & Consumer sector, advising on the launch of global e-commerce platforms and digital products and services. He has also been heavily involved in the fintech market, particularly advising start-ups, banks and other financial institutions on technology procurement and launching virtual financial services.
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atrick leads the firm’s developer sector and is Head of Real Estate Group. With expertise in all aspects of commercial property disputes, whether property or landlord and tenant, he has acted on several multi-million pound claims. These relate to development, dilapidations and disrepair, options, agreements to purchase, contractual loss of profits, restrictive covenants, injunctions and easements. Patrick also has extensive Court of Appeal, High Court trial and arbitration experience, and has successfully resolved over 25 matters at mediation. Focused on taking a pragmatic approach to litigation and dispute resolution, Patrick always considers what the client wants and how to get results – whether that be through proactive and forthright litigation or a more conciliatory approach.
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Paul is a very experienced medical negligence specialist who is a partner in both Foot Anstey and our sister firm, Enable Law. His particular areas of expertise include acting for adults with brain and spinal injuries, amputations and cancer, although he supports clients with a wide range of medical conditions. Paul is regularly involved in training medical experts, and has been featured across various media while speaking on the subject of medical negligence.
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Pete is a partner in our Dispute Resolution team. He has significant experience advising established, national and international Media and Retail clients about a range of operational issues including contractual matters relating to distribution and supply and contentious data and Intellectual Property, as well as advising both funds and Private Equity owned portfolio companies about matters relating to their growth including shareholder issues and dispute adjacent to share or asset purchases such as warranty claims and deferred consideration. Pete’s recent career highlight came when he supported Guernsey lead counsel in a dispute for hundreds of millions of pounds relating to unfair prejudice petition brought by minority PE shareholders in an entity behind successful exchange traded funds. Pete strives to build relationships with clients that allow him to deliver bespoke solutions that achieve the desired outcome, rather than a ‘pre-packaged’ approach.
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Phil is a Legal Director at the firm. He is based at our Exeter office and has extensive experience in dealing with a variety of real estate centric matters, with specialisms in landlord and tenant matters, focusing on retail, industrial and corporate occupier work as well as leading on local development projects.
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Rachel is an experienced property and estates litigation expert at Foot Anstey. She provides clients with clear, concise, and accurate legal advice, with an appreciation of the nuances between their commercial constraints and desired outcomes. Prior to joining Foot Anstey Rachel previously worked in-house at a large international retailer, so she’s well-placed to understand the difficulties faced internally by some clients. Recently Rachel has advised a number of landowner clients on the effects of the new electronic communications code, dealing with a number of contentious claims with regards to termination, renewal, and modification of new and existing Code agreements. Rachel has also worked on multiple “test” cases under the new electronic communications code being heard at the Lands Chamber of the Upper Tribunal.
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Rachel is an expert in residential developments and commercial real estate at Foot Anstey. Her expertise is focused on the areas she is most passionate about: complex projects, social housing, regeneration and land economics.
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Simon is a Senior Associate in the firm’s Dispute Resolution team. He has significant experience in advising clients on technically complex issues and disputes relating to all types of property, with a focus on commercial and development property. He provides high quality and pragmatic advice targeted at aiding his clients achieve their ambitions. Simon acts for a range of clients, including private landowners, financial institutions, commercial landlords and tenants as well as residential and commercial developers and asset managers. He regularly acts for clients in Court proceedings, arbitrations, tribunals and other forms of alternative dispute resolution, such as mediations and expert determinations.
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Stephanie has significant experience in all aspects of general property and commercial landlord and tenant disputes, in particular relating to managing and mitigating risk in transactional work. Stephanie advises on a wide range of contentious commercial property matters, and her experience extends to complex, high profile and politically sensitive advisory work. She has dealt with real estate litigation in both the High Court and Court of Appeal and has resolved disputes through mediation and arbitration. In addition to “traditional” property disputes, Stephanie also advises on planning-related matters including judicial reviews and statutory challenges.
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Steven is a commercial litigator who leads the firm’s multi-disciplinary Fraud and Cybercrime practice. He works on high value and complex commercial claims with an emphasis on corporate disputes, banking and financial sector litigation, professional negligence, contentious insolvency and insurance disputes. He advises regularly on business critical and urgent disputes and has particular knowledge of obtaining, enforcing and responding to applications for injunctive relief (including freezing, search and seizure and delivery up orders). In addition to extensive High Court trial expertise, Steven has significant experience advising clients on the resolution of disputes through mediations and out of court settlements. In all cases, Steven’s primary goal is to understand the objectives of the client and to work to identify what value means to them in the given context. Cost plays an important role in disputes work and Steven has extensive knowledge of litigation funding and the management of cost risks. He also spearheads the firm’s fixed fee litigation service which offers an alternative to the traditional hourly rate, allowing us to share the cost of risk with clients and provide them with the comfort that legal fees can be kept within budget. One recent highlight for Steven has been acting for a group of investors in a successful challenge to the Court of Appeal in respect of their claim against Clydesdale Bank, which related to a failed Cape Verde real estate scheme. The case was widely reported in the press and clarifies the law in relation to the scope of the rights of third parties under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
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Terence is an experienced disputes lawyer and Legal Director in the commercial litigation team. He specialises in financial services litigation, including contentious regulatory matters and related insurance coverage advice and claims (including D&O defence) and procurement disputes. Terence has been an insurance partner at a leading international insurance firm and has advised numerous financial institutions/retail financial services firms, corporates, private individuals and public sector clients, including local authorities, central government departments and insurers/reinsurers, on a wide range of financial and commercial disputes. Terence frequently acts for IFAs and investment managers in contentious matters (on both an insured and uninsured basis), including defending claims and complaints of mis-selling/breach of mandate before both the Courts and the FOS, as well as FCA investigations and disciplinary proceedings and in respect of restrictive covenant and breach of confidentiality issues arising upon the exit of senior personnel/advisors. Terence takes a risk-based approach, with cost-benefit firmly in mind, and is keen advocate of ADR. He seeks to keep relationships on track by focussing upon both dispute avoidance and the resolution of disputes at an early stage, with commercial considerations front and centre in his advice.
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Tim is a member of our restructuring and insolvency team and provides advisory support to a broad range of businesses, directors, financial institutions and insolvency practitioners. Increasingly Tim advises distressed corporates and their directors in relation to their statutory duties, supporting them as they make ongoing decisions in respect of trading, investments and asset disposals. As a result of a secondment with a High Street Clearing Bank, Tim has significant experience in providing advice to financial institutions in respect of their stressed and distressed portfolios, covering new lending, security structures and enforcement. He also works with lenders and investors operating in the distressed debt sector. Another highlight has been advising five of the small number of investment firms to enter into special administration following the introduction of the specialist procedure as a result of the collapse of Lehman Brothers – Tim is one of a limited number of lawyers with significant experience in this area. Tim particularly enjoys the technical detail of restructuring and insolvency work, and has created a knowledge sharing culture around this within the firm enabling colleagues to learn from one another and be better prepared to assist clients.
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Tim is a highly regarded and experienced lawyer who provides clients based in the UK and overseas with clear and practical advice in a responsive and commercial way. Tim has developed a complete ‘regulatory’ practice since qualification in 2007, from his beginnings in the criminal courts of England and Wales defending motorists accused of road traffic offences now extending to advising multinational organisations, schools, colleges and football clubs to name a few. Tim’s time is principally spent advising clients facing investigation or prosecution by the police or other regulatory bodies with the power to impose sanctions. Tim works closely with clients to anticipate regulatory risks in their sector and review practices in place within the business to minimise the risk of adverse issues arising. Tim regularly delivers training to senior leaders looking at crisis and critical incident planning and response.
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Toby has significant experience in advising clients on a range of banking and finance transactions, with a particular focus on real estate and leveraged finance and private equity debt work. He has acted extensively for the main clearing banks and various private lenders and borrowers in respect of investment and development finance transactions, with a particular focus on cross border transactions. In the Private Equity space, Toby has advised Piper Private Equity and others, together with their portfolio companies, on the debt and security aspects of numerous investments.
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Tris is a partner in the Projects, Construction and Infrastructure team specialising in all forms of dispute resolution, dispute avoidance and strategic advice on both national and international projects. Tris advises employers, consultants and contractors on all aspects of construction and engineering disputes and is very experienced in adjudication, arbitration and litigation. He specialises in defending and pursuing disputes against and for developers, employers, main contractors and sub-contractors as well as architects, engineers and other construction professionals. Tris also has a wealth of experience in NEC, JCT and FIDIC forms of contract and regularly deals with issues such as defects, design responsibility, delay and associated costs, interim applications, final accounts and fee recovery. A recent highlight for Tris was supporting a client in successfully avoiding a major dispute on the Crossrail project. Tris has experience on major projects in other jurisdictions such as Europe, the US and the Middle East.
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Zahir is a partner in our Islamic finance practice and advises on a range of real estate driven transactions for both investors and financial institutions. He is named in the Legal 500 2023 as a Next Generation Partner in Islamic finance in London and described by clients as ‘an incredibly smart lawyer with a close eye on the commercial aspects of legal decision making’ and ‘very approachable, responsive and knowledgeable.’ Zahir joined the firm over a decade ago as one of the first fee earners in our then newly established Bristol office and, after a client-side stint as General Counsel at a privately-owned investment advisory firm in the West End, returned to Foot Anstey in 2019. He aims to provide solutions-focused advice to clients, having been one himself. He is well-versed in structuring real estate investments and financings in line with our clients’ strategic aims, and seeing those through the full transaction lifecycle. He enjoys working collaboratively with stakeholders and transaction counterparties and aims to impart advice grounded in commerciality and pragmatism.