I have been a lawyer for over 30 years, training with a magic circle firm, being a partner of a national practice for ten years and for the last half of my career working with Bates Wells to support purpose led organisations.
I am committed to applying my legal skills and business experience to help clients committed to social and environmental change. This includes charities, social enterprises, social and impact investors, purpose led businesses and public authorities.
I advise commercial organisations looking to embed purpose in what they do, including reviewing their governance structures and revising their contractual relationships and terms with stakeholders. These are often businesses seeking to address issues such as the climate emergency and biodiversity loss, either as the primary focus of their activities, or by adapting how they operate.
I work with grant making foundations and investors to develop more balanced, less onerous terms in their standard agreements and to take more systemic and ambitious approaches, within legal constraints, to delivering positive impact.
I advise community owned and focused organisations providing renewable energy, affordable locally owned and managed homes and affordable finance.
I advise on procurement, subsidy control and contracting and commercial issues through a lens of achieving social and environmental outcomes in addition to achieving value for money.
I am also actively involved in initiatives encouraging culture change within the legal profession as a means of delivering greater social and environmental impact for our clients and the wider public interest through the work we do.
- Acting for community groups and partnerships aimed at more co-ordinated and collaborated land management and landscape recovery activities, taking an ecosystem-wide perspective and looking to balance food production, nature restoration and community engagement.
- Advising on many to many arrangements structured around common visions; relational contracting arrangements and outcomes based contracting and funding.
- Advising on corporate governance arrangements seeking to bring nature’s voice into decision making to deliver reciprocal benefits in the impacts of the organisation on the natural world and the lessons from nature which may lead to better outcomes for the organisation.
- Acting for charitable clients looking to change how they work with their grantees; how they approach their activities more systemically; and exploring models such as fiscal hosting and impactful spend down.
- Advising clients in the voluntary carbon and ecological services sectors, on the suppliers’, purchasers’ and structuring perspectives.
- Acting for a new higher and further education college, based in the Brecon Beacons, offering the first UK based degree aimed at equipping graduates for a climate stressed world. This has involved structuring charitable and non charitable entities and attracting social investment to enable the college to become established.
- Acting for a new provider of high quality educational content, particularly natural history film footage and infographics to raise understanding of biodiversity and climate challenges. This involved creating a community interest company and structuring equity and debt investment into it which was social investment tax relief compliant.
- Acting for a number of community land trusts as they become established, attract funding and develop their initial projects.
- I advise to not for profit purchasers of renewable energy schemes on refinancings and introducing community ownership models.
- I advise on the structuring and give governance advice around incorporation of charities, community interest companies and community benefit societies.
- I assist with the funding and refinancing of civil society organisations, including blended finance, bond and share issues and project finance.
- I provide public procurement, subsidy control and state aid advice to public sector bodies and civil society organisations.
- I advise public sector employees looking to create independent social enterprises, including health, local authority and probation services.
- I advise community groups creating co-operatives and community benefit societies, including land trusts and renewable energy companies.
- I advise civil society organisations providing public services, including payment by results contracting.
- I act on mergers and acquisitions of civil society businesses.
- I advise on partnership arrangements between for profit and not for profit organisations.
- I advise on international licensing and distribution agreements.
- I advise public sector and education establishments on disposals of assets.