Retail Review

Alison specialises in all types of property work – both commercial and residential – including property insolvency, agriculture, complex property transactions and notary public.

Alistair specialises in advising retailers and corporate occupiers on the management of their operational portfolios.

He has considerable experience of advising retail chains on their acquisition and disposal programmes, leading teams in dealing with the management of their portfolios and advising on key strategic acquisitions for corporate occupiers. Alistair is a member of REVO, BRC and is former chairman of the Southampton Property Association. He supports the Property Managers Association and has presented at PMA conferences in the past as well as on seminars in Europe on retail property leases. He also has extensive experience of acquiring Head Office premises for large corporates specifically in London.

Amy is a Trainee Solicitor based in Bristol, currently sitting in the Commercial (Digital) team where she assists on a broad range of IT and technology projects. Her previous seats have included Banking and Finance and Operational Property.

Anthony specialises in commercial real estate transactions. He has particular experience in marine and energy related transactions and the ports sector, and in development and investment work. His clients include Babcock International Group and The Crown Estate.

Christina is our head of retail employment. She has extensive experience advising predominantly employers on the full range of employment law issues from recruitment to dismissal. Her expertise includes managing employee relations issues, change management, outsourcing, business transfers, discrimination issues, tribunal advocacy, restrictive covenant disputes and training. As a dual-qualified, multi-lingual Finnish-English lawyer, she has a particular interest in cross-border employment issues.

She is the client relationship manager for Signet and Colgate-Palmolive as well as a number of our education clients and is the lead employment lawyer for many of our retail clients.

Claire is a commercial real estate specialist and head of WBD's Retail and Hospitality team. She has extensive experience in all aspects of transactions, advising investors, occupiers, and developers from site assembly/development through to letting and on-going asset management. 

Claire routinely leads multi-disciplinary and multi-locational teams advising on portfolio acquisitions/disposals, financing and development. Claire has particular experience in retail, transport and logistics, and the hotel and leisure sectors.  

Clare is a commercial real estate lawyer with over 25 years' experience in all aspects of real estate work and particular expertise in retail leasing for several major high street retailers.

She provides professional advice on lease acquisitions, renewals, variations and disposals, lease management issues (including documenting landlord and tenant works, rent reviews and preparation and service of break notices and notices to quit) assignations, sub-leases and surrenders for both landlords and tenants.

She also advises on the asset management of shopping centres and on high value security transactions. 

Clare takes the lead role in transactions and delegates and supervises effectively where appropriate. She has a proven track record of delivering complex transactions within tight timescales.

Dan advises clients on a wide range of both contentious and non-contentious employment matters. Key areas of expertise include:

• Worker and employment status cases, including defending clients from group litigation and assessing the risks in their workforce
• Sensitive disability discrimination cases involving neurodiversity and mental health conditions
• The drafting and enforcement of restrictive covenants
• Supporting the firm's commercial department on the employment aspects of outsourcing work.

David specialises in Real Estate Litigation and Dispute Resolution, advising investor clients, institutional landlords and tenants on their property portfolio. David advises on break notice and clauses, forfeiture of leases, dilapidations, contested alienations breaches, opposed and unopposed lease renewals and recovery of rent arrears. David has also advised on boundary disputes, party wall matters and protected his client's interests and easements as property owners. David has advised clients on issues related to trespassing and adverse possession of land.

David is also able to advise clients on issues relating to the telecommunications code.

Gearalt is a recognised expert in employment law and an experienced litigator. For over 20 years, he has advised employers across the UK on complex and strategic legal work, with a client portfolio spanning a range of sectors including energy, construction, retail, charities and manufacturing.

Gearalt has a strong track record advising the full spectrum businesses from large PLCs and FTSE-listed clients through to SMEs, owner-managed businesses and charitable organisations.

Gearalt leads the WBD Northern Employment team. Specialising in workplace change, he has significant expertise in devising and project managing solution-based support for employers.

Jon acts primarily for property investor clients whose business is direct investment in UK real estate. Jon acts on disposals and acquisitions of high value institutional grade assets covering all major commercial asset classes, including industrial estates, office blocks, shopping centres and high street retail. Jon advises on share sales and acquisitions for real estate SPVs, as well as asset sales and acquisitions. He manages a dynamic and responsive team experienced in dealing with the day to day asset management work arising from such properties throughout the whole investment cycle. 

Karen is a practice development lawyer specialising in employment law. She has more than 30 years' experience of advising employers and employees. She is responsible for ensuring that the employment team is kept fully up-to-date with relevant legislation and case law, curating our employment precedents and knowhow, writing training and webinars/seminars for clients, producing bespoke newsletters, horizon scanners and reports, updating our timeline and key facts sheet and maintaining our Twitter account.

Karen organises and writes our regular employment clubs. She has spoken at CIPD events and has taught employment law to solicitors for Central Law Training. She has had articles published in various legal and HR journals and is a member of the Employment Lawyers’ Association.

Katie is an experienced data and technology lawyer, specialising in data privacy, cybersecurity, digital regulation and technology transactions.

Katie advises clients on a range of data-related issues, including data protection compliance, international data transfer requirements, advising on compliance with cookie laws and direct marketing rules and advising clients on their responses to regulatory investigations led by data protection and consumer authorities. In parallel, Katie advises on large scale technology projects, including advising clients in distress situations and on the renegotiation of IT contracts.

Katie's particular focus and interest is how the development of emerging technologies intersects with data privacy.  Katie leads the firm's emerging technologies group and chairs the SCL's IT Disputes Committee. 

Nicola specialises in providing tailored, practical employment law support to her clients' HR and legal teams, to assist them in achieving desired outcomes with minimal legal risks. Clients see Nicola as an extension of their internal teams, looking to her for strategic advice and options when looking to implement new approaches.

Nicola acts for a number of high profile regional and national clients and has a wealth of experience in advising on all aspects of employment law, including high value employment tribunal litigation, change management projects, day to day employee relations issues, delivering training sessions and drafting policies and contractual documentation.

Nicola builds genuine collegiate relationships with, and plays a part in the growth and success of, the clients that she works with, investing time in getting to know her clients and their day to day business operations.

Nicola is a Partner and has specialised in Commercial Property since 2005. She assists Craig Moore in leading the Plymouth Real Estate Team.

She acts for a number of high profile regional clients and has a wealth of experience in landlord and tenant work including commercial freehold and leasehold acquisitions, disposals and property management work for a wide variety of large developer and investor landlords.

She provides seamless project management experience in leading multidisciplinary teams of lawyers on large corporate share and asset acquisitions and disposals and has led and won a number of successful client pitches in the last year "virtually" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She is the “go to” Real Estate touchpoint for the South West Corporate Team. She leads a core, skilled team to drive this forward efficiently and making use of technology. 

Nikki acts for a range of business clients, institutions and public sector occupiers in relation to their property requirements including acquisitions, lease renewals and disposals relating to trading premises, warehouses, industrial units and other properties. She guides clients through strategic projects (including corporate acquisitions and divestments, insolvency processes, re-organisations and Head Office relocations. She specialises in managing large and diverse property portfolios.

Her work is predominantly retail focused and she acts for a number of national and international retailers including:

• Ann Summers
• Footlocker
• New Look
• Specsavers.

Paul demonstrates an outstanding level of technical ability over all sectors of Real Estate work – he has particular expertise in commercial property and the energy sector, advising clients across the private and public sectors. In addition, he has developed a detailed understanding of property finance issues.

Clients regularly comment on the consistently high standard of service provided by Paul. 

Tom advises on a broad range of finance transactions, principally acting for institutional lenders and corporate borrowers, having qualified with the firm in 2008 into the corporate finance, banking and restructuring and insolvency teams.

Tom acts for lenders and borrowers in real estate investment and development finance transactions. Tom also acts for lenders and developers on renewables finance projects, including onshore wind farms and waste to energy projects.

In addition, Tom also advised lenders and borrowers on security and intercreditor issues and advisers private investors on security and funding arrangements.