Focus on our retail & leisure team at Clarke Willmott
Our dedicated teams work hard to look after clients, whatever their legal needs. Our broad expertise across the firm means that any one of our lawyers has access to a network of experts who can be recommended to ensure you are receiving the best holistic legal care at the right time.
In this series, we’re showcasing the individuals who make up our talented team. We’re speaking with our legal experts to learn more about their areas of expertise, what they enjoy most about their work, and how they work together to provide exceptional legal care to our clients.
The team, headed up by Amanda French, represents a wide range of Retail and Leisure businesses across the entire supply chain. We spoke to Amanda to find out more about the team and the work they do to support clients.
Tell us a little bit about the retail and leisure team at Clarke Willmott
The team consists of almost 200 lawyers and provides a full range of legal services to our clients who operate within the retail, leisure and hospitality sector. The sector team includes lawyers within our Construction, Corporate & Commercial, Debt Recovery, Employment, Litigation, Planning, Property Litigation, Real Estate teams to support clients across the sector. We have a core group of Partners across multiple teams who are driving the strategic objectives of the group and a team of our key lawyers raising our profile within the sector.
Our objective is to be the go-to full-service firm for all in the retail, leisure and hospitality space.
Amanda explains that they have tremendous long-term relationships with many household-names which the team are incredibly proud of. The team’s objectives will be to continue to provide expert advice as well as advancing growth aspirations. Her primary goal as the head of the sector is to ensure our current clients access all our experts and the full suite of services we provide, and accordingly she explains that there “is currently a concerted effort to effectively communicate both internally and externally about the exceptional lawyers we have at Clarke Willmott and the extensive and expert advice we already provide our retail and leisure clients.”
Her secondary goal will be to increase the number of retailers and leisure & hospitality operators we advise. She is keen to ensure the sector is aware of the outstanding services we provide, investing in the teams to ensure they can provide expert advice on all issues that affect our sector.
Can you provide some examples of the types of clients you have supported?
The team works with a broad range of clients in these sectors, including high street retailers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and holiday parks. Some of our notable clients include Lidl, Las Iguanas, Fat Face, Parkdean Resorts, Moto and Turtle Bay.
Some examples of work are:
- Supporting Cornish Bakery in opening and refurbishing stores across the country
- Advising on the sale of Capital Cash to Cash Converters
- Supporting multi-national fast food brand Burger King for over 20 years, regarding their national property portfolio
- Advising Decathlon, the World’s largest Sports retailer, on employment law matters
- Appointed to legal panel of national shoe retailer Clarks
- Supporting the expansion of Ireland’s largest cinema Omniplex, into Great Britain
How do you work with clients and what separates your team from the rest?
We create long-term relationships with our clients by becoming trusted advisors providing good value expertise.
Our specialist teams have years of experience working in the sector. Some of our clients have worked with us for over 20 years, and the relationships we have built here are what makes our team stand out.
As a firm we have a partner-led approach, meaning that our clients receive succinct, quick, expert advice on all matters from the extremely complex high value matters to the high-volume legal services. In all matters our clients receive support from highly qualified lawyers.
While our history in this sector was primarily advising on property and real estate issues, we’ve also been deeply involved in innovative projects across commercial, intellectual property (IP), data protection, employment and corporate transactions. Our team possesses great commerciality and can offer insightful advice.
How does the team keep clients up to date with changes in regulations/law?
We have several ways that we keep our clients up to date with changes. We predominantly use social media, email bulletins, and a combination of talks, podcasts and live events. We regularly post content on LinkedIn, sharing our expertise across disciplines and maximising the exposure we receive, reaching all our clients referrers and contacts. This can be articles, such as the recent piece on The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, reporting of deals or commenting on topical issues within the sector.
Several of our retail and leisure experts participate in Clarke Willmott’s various series of talks and events, these are often focused on issues affecting retail and leisure operators and those in the hospitality space. Many of our experts also enjoy providing commentary on current affairs within the sector, including the recent news about Avon, the beauty company that has expanded its market presence by opening physical stores for the first time in its 137-year history. You can learn more about Amanda’s thoughts here.
How can retail and leisure clients get in touch with Clarke Willmott?
If you would like to find out more about how our expert retail, leisure and hospitality team can support you or your client’s, please contact one of our lawyers or request a consultation.
Clarke Willmott has offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Manchester, Southampton and Taunton.
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