The Legal 500

Howard Kennedy, a leading law firm, provides a full range of services to well-established national and international organisations.

The firm: Howard Kennedy prides itself on helping clients achieve their business objectives through a commercial and focused service. The firm supports clients in more than 100 jurisdictions through relationships with overseas professional firms, is a leading member of Lawyers Associated Worldwide (LAW) and is a registered sponsor on the London Stock Exchange.

Types of work undertaken: AIM: the group has an excellent reputation for its expert knowledge of the UK AIM market and listing procedures. It acts for both issuers and nomads/brokers nationally and internationally.

Banking and property finance: the group advises clearing banks, building societies and other lending institutions and borrowers based in the UK and overseas and has specialist expertise in complex funding, investment and restructuring.

Charities: the group advises a wide range of charities on governance, employment, property and other issues.

Construction: the group undertakes contentious and non-contentious work, acting for developers, investors and banks on a range of commercial, leisure, residential and mixed-use schemes.

Corporate: the group is highly regarded for venture capital trust work and in the hotels and leisure sectors and offers advice on corporate finance transactions, including full stock exchange flotations and AIM flotations, rights issues and unquoted public share offerings, public and private takeovers, M&A, private equity investments and joint ventures (particularly for corporate real estate clients).

Corporate recovery and reconstruction: the group advises creditors, debtors, directors of companies and business recovery professionals.

Employment: the group advises on strategic/board level/HR support, restructurings/outsourcings, redundancies, corporate transactions, grievances/dismissals, industrial disputes, and all employment litigation, including discrimination, protection of confidential information, restrictive covenants, bonuses, and directors’/shareholders’ disputes.

Family: the group offers constructive advice on divorce and financial issues, as well as issues relating to children, cohabitation/living together, civil partnerships and mediation.

Financial regulation and investment funds: the firm is now able to offer a specialist resource in relation to regulation issues under the FSA regime and in the formation and promotion of private and alternative investment funds.

International: the group co-ordinates the firm’s cross-border activities and relationships with overseas professionals, giving advice on inward investment, cross-border M&A, real estate and hotel transactions, cross-border taxation, succession planning and asset protection for prominent individuals and corporate clients, cross-border disputes and arbitration, and international trade documentation

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IP, media and leisure: the group advises on the creation, protection, development and exploitation of intellectual property rights. These include TV, theatre, book and magazine publishing, music, new media, computer software, merchandising, sponsorship, hotels, leisure parks and sports.

Litigation: the group advises commercial and private clients, domestic and international, covering contract, negligence, professional negligence, corporate and partnership disputes, property, insolvency, banking, insurance, IP, personal injury, debt collection, and ADR and arbitration.

Planning: the group acts on all aspects of planning, highways, compulsory purchase, public law, environmental, licensing and regeneration.

Private client: the group advises on personal tax planning (especially inheritance and capital gains tax), settlements including taxation of offshore trusts, probate and the administration of trusts and estates, wills, complex family financial structures and charity law.

Property: the group is highly regarded for its commercial property advice, including the development and financing of retail, industrial and residential premises, with particular emphasis on investment and the retail and leisure industries.

Tax: the group advises clients ranging from private individuals to public companies, to help plan and structure acquisitions, disposals, joint ventures and investment funds. The group also advises on tax investigations, employment tax and non-UK domiciled individuals.

Breakdown of work %
Property 35
Corporate 22
Litigation 20
Banking and property finance 7
Employment 5
Construction 2
Corporate recovery and reconstruction 2
Family 2
Private client 2
IP, media and leisure 1
Planning 1
Tax 1

Number of UK partners 62
Number of other UK fee-earners 103