Experience

As a solicitor at Bates Wells, I advise charities, not-for-profit organisations, membership bodies and public bodies on a wide range of charity law, governance and regulatory matters.

My experience includes advising on charity structuring and registration, trusts and endowments, grant funding arrangements, constitutional change, Charity Commission engagement, serious incident reporting, campaigning, commercial contracts, trading subsidiaries, and charity closures. I also have particular experience of working with students’ unions on a range of issues, including charity law compliance and freedom of speech.

Before qualifying as a solicitor, I gained experience working across a range of practice areas including charity and social enterprise, corporate and commercial, dispute resolution, real estate, employment and immigration. I draw on this experience and work with colleagues across the firm to provide seamless advice to clients across a wide range of issues.

Highlights
  • Constitutional and governance matters: I regularly advise charities and not-for-profit organisations on constitutional and governance matters, including formation, drafting changes to constitutional documents, preparing bespoke policies and delegation frameworks, advising on stakeholder engagement and obtaining regulatory consents where needed.
  • Grant making: I advised a large grant making charity on their template grant making documents, with an emphasis on drafting progressive and plain-English grant terms designed to support collaborative funding relationships while preserving key legal protections.
  • Endowments and restricted funds: I advise charities on setting up endowment funds as well as releasing permanent endowment and/or purpose restrictions on outdated funds using the powers introduced by the Charities Act 2022.
  • Engagement with the Charity Commission: I regularly advise charities on their engagement with the Charity Commission, including in relation to serious incident reporting and responding to regulatory compliance cases.
  • I am a contributing author to The Charities Acts Handbook.