Buckles Solicitors LLP

Charles Applegate

Charles specialises in wills, probate and tax planning.

Colleen Gostick

Colleen is the firm’s award-winning chairman. She is a highly regarded commercial property lawyer with strong local connections and extensive experience of all aspects of commercial property work, including a particular specialism in Retail and Industrial Development, acting for clients with portfolios across the UK and Europe.

Duncan Jackson

Duncan is the firm's chief executive and a wealth preservation specialist, focusing particularly on inheritance tax planning and trusts. Duncan contributes to various legal and local publications and is frequently invited by third parties to speak on 'The Effective use of Wills and Trusts'.

Gail Sykes

Gail is a partner at Buckles and is head of the housing department. She has particular expertise in housing litigation and housing management law, she is an experienced advocate who regularly and successfully represents her clients in court proceedings. Gail assists clients with possession proceedings, injunctions, demotion proceedings and ASBOs. Gail regularly speaks at national and regional housing conferences and provides bespoke training for her clients.

James Maxey

James specialises in commercial disputes, professional negligence, shareholder disputes and breach of director’s duties as well as advising insolvency practitioners on a wide range of contentious insolvency issues. James accepts appointments as a Mediator and also represents clients in mediation.

Lyn Brisley

Lyn handles all aspects of divorce and separation as well as doing preventative work with cohabitation contracts and prenuptial agreements. Lyn particularly enjoys working with clients involved in farming and family run businesses, where solutions need to be found for all family members involved in the business enterprise. She also has a real interest in dealing with international clients' cases involving cultural diversity. Lyn is a trained collaborative lawyer who aims to help couples reach an agreement on how assets should be divided in a civilised way without the stress of going to Court. In addition, Lyn is a trained family mediator. She uses her experience to guide and assist couples to explore options that work for both partners. Lyn also has extensive experience in Court as well as dealing with more complex cases and high-net-worth individuals.

Michael Rabbett

Michael handles a broad mix of agricultural, commercial and residential property matters and works with a wide range of businesses including the farming community and the haulage sector. In addition to his general commercial expertise, Michael has gained significant experience in acting for developers in site acquisition and subsequent unit sales for both commercial and residential developments. Michael's agricultural clients consult him on a wide range of matters, from land acquisition and sales (and the single farm payment issues arising from those transactions) through to farm business tenancies, diversification issues (such as wind farm and communication mast leases), mineral extraction and landfill.

Michael Blank

Michael has a wide ranging experience of all aspects of commercial property transactions acting for both private and public sector clients. Clients include not only property developers, but also financial institutions, manufacturing companies with diverse property portfolios, clients in the retail sector, and other owner managed businesses. He is expert at the drafting and negotiation of all types of commercial lease. When acting for developers, Michael is able to guide them through the process of acquiring development land, then funding the development process and finally disposing of the completed development, whether on a freehold or leasehold basis, and to single or multiple occupiers. Michael is a Fellow of the Agricultural Law Association and deals with the acquisition and disposal of agricultural land, whether for development or continuing agricultural use, and is also familiar with tenancies under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 (and tenant succession issues) and Farm Business Tenancies granted in accordance with the Agricultural Holdings Act 1995. Michael is also familiar with the securitisation of commercial property finance on behalf of financial institutions.

Nigel Moore

Nigel specialises in transactional work and is recognised by The Legal 500 as a leading individual for corporate and commercial work in East Anglia. He acts for a mix of established clients in the software, publishing and food related sectors as well as being a favourite with new generation of entrepreneurial clients in industries as diverse as defence procurement, engineering, urban regeneration, agriculture and web based services. He also advises many other professional firms particularly in relation to partnership and LLP matters.

Paul Branch

Paul is a recognised expert in property and trust disputes. He acts for registered providers, commercial landlords, tenants and owner occupiers as well as advising trustees and beneficiaries. He also represents clients at mediation and accepts appointments as mediator. Paul's personal caseload includes property disputes from local authorities and he undertakes contentious trust litigation involving multi-party property rights claims arising out of multi-million pound property portfolios within the UK and overseas, as well as a broad range of more modest local and regional contentious property work.

Roger Clarke

Roger deals with all types of personal injury claims including clinical negligence cases, road traffic cases, accidents at work and slips and trips, although he specialises in high value claims, particularly those arising from cases involving fatal accidents and where clients sustain serious spinal or head injuries.

Roger Gurney

Roger specialises in all aspects of family law and is a trained collaborative lawyer and mediator. He advises on all aspects of relationship breakdown whether divorce, separation or issues relating to children. Roger’s work also includes the preparation of pre/post-marital agreements and cohabitation contracts.

Stephen Duffy

Stephen Duffy specialises in care home fees matters, to include planning to protect assets and resolving disputes with local authorities.