Gardner Leader LLP

Philip Humphreys

Philip is a Partner in our Corporate Team. He is a transactional M&A lawyer with over 30 years’ extensive corporate experience, acting mainly for sellers on share and asset deals. He also specialises in management buy-outs, joint ventures and reorganisations and increasingly is relied on by clients for overall strategic and commercial advice. He works with a mixture of regional, national and international clients. He is frequently recommended as a key individual in Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners, the two main independent legal guides: “He is very pragmatic and solution-driven, he always comes up with viable and workable solutions. “ “He’s excellent; he’s highly commercial, very strong technically and has a very calm manner. “

Peter James

Sally is a Partner in the Corporate, Commercial and Life Sciences teams. Sally has had a distinguished career that started in a top 10 law firm and included several years in Hong Kong. After 10 years as a corporate lawyer in private practice Sally moved inhouse for 13 years as Head of Legal for a multi-national technology company which was successfully sold for £82m in 2012. Sally then founded her own boutique corporate law firm in Oxford and over the course of 13 years her team acted for clients in the life sciences sector and the broader business community. In 2023 Sally joined her team with Gardner Leader LLP and is looking forward to expanding the Oxford office. Sally is recognised as an astute, versatile lawyer. She has a well-earned reputation for providing pragmatic, commercial advice. Sally likes to act for family-owned or entrepreneur led businesses but is just as at home working with large corporates and UK subsidiaries of multi-national and overseas listed companies.

Joe Lewis

Joe is a Partner and Team Leader of our Corporate Team. He advises entrepreneurs and business owners at all stages of their development from start-up to exit, including start-up capital, angel financing and private equity investment. His practice covers private M&A, management buyouts, shareholders agreements and joint ventures, reorganisation and corporate governance. He has experience of capital markets transactions, including flotations, introductions and fundraisings, having acted for numbers UK and international issuers. Joe is recommended in the Legal 500 2023, as being “experienced, calm and professional”.

Elizabeth Saunders

Elizabeth Saunders is a Partner in our Family Team. Elizabeth has vast experience and technical grasp of issues that arise for high net worth individuals when their personal or wider family relationships break down. Elizabeth frequently deals with trust structures, inherited wealth and family businesses on divorce or separation. Always strategic and constructive, she is a tenacious litigator when the need arises and entirely focused on getting the best outcome for her client. Elizabeth also negotiates and drafts pre and post-nuptial agreements.

James Thorpe

James is a Partner in the Corporate Team. James is an experienced M&A lawyer with over 20 years’ experience advising on a range of M&A matters, specialising in transactional work for UK clients and subsidiaries of overseas clients. James acts for clients of all sizes and in various sectors.James also undertakes complex business reorganisations, demergers, capital reductions, and share buy backs and shareholders’ agreements working alongside the client’s accountants and tax advisers. He also provides advice on shareholders’ agreements, succession planning and investments. He trained with and spent 5 years with a large regional practice.

Gail Vallis

Gail is a Senior Associate in the Corporate team. Gail advises on business and share sale and purchases, internal restructuring, shareholders’ agreements and articles of association as well as corporate governance and providing general corporate advice. Gail has particular experience of the life sciences sector. Prior to qualification as a solicitor, Gail worked as a project manager in biopharmaceutical contract research before moving to the in-house legal team of Merck KGaA. Here she advised the life sciences, pharmaceutical and consumer health businesses of Merck Millipore (Now Millipore Sigma), Merck Healthcare and Seven Seas amongst others. Gail has been recommended for her ‘calm and professional approach’ in the Legal 500 2024.

Karron Whitter

With over 25 years’ Real Estate experience, Karron has been practising in Swindon and Wiltshire for over 20 years and is well known to Swindon property professionals and in the North Wiltshire region with a reputation for getting the job done. Karron has clients across a broad spectrum of sectors, but specialisms include office and industrial/warehouse leases - often for corporate occupiers and notably high-end offices in the City but also advises on more specialist premises such as flight schools and regularly for industrial and warehouse occupiers.