Lawrence Stephens solicitors

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John Aynsley

John Aynsley is a Partner in the Commercial Real Estate team at Lawrence Stephens. He specialises in the acquisition, disposal, development, regeneration, financing, and management of high-value assets in commercial real estate, John acts for clients ranging from international real estate funds and listed house builders to private investors.

Goli-Michelle Banan

As head of residential real estate at Lawrence Stephens, Goli-Michelle Banan heads a team of 20 who work on transactions involving properties worth up to £40 million. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in the prime and central London property markets, she now operates nationally, dealing with country property and landed estates, city homes and apartments, the acquisition of commercial or mixed-use land for residential redevelopment, financing and property portfolios. Her approach is centred on building lasting professional relationships. She is a trusted adviser and works fiercely to facilitate deals for her clients to ensure success. Introducers and peers value her meticulous attention to detail and friendly approach, notwithstanding her relentless determination. Clients Her established network of clients and business contacts is largely made up of HNW and UHNW private individuals, end users, investors and developers, both individuals and corporate entities, and trust administrators based domestically and internationally.

Ajoy Bose-Mallick

Ajoy Bose-Mallick is the Head of the Banking team at Lawrence Stephens. He acts for a wide range of different lenders, non-bank lenders, alternative lenders, entrepreneurs, private family offices, property companies, funds, sponsors, developers, joint venture vehicles, entrepreneurs and borrowers on real estate investment and development finance projects across the UK ranging from £100k to £75m. The bulk of the transactions he advises on are between £1m and £50m and span a wide variety of asset classes including residential, office, PRS, student accommodation, mixed use schemes, hotel, retail and buy to let projects. He also has extensive experience working on transactions which involve international elements and offshore jurisdictions and working for international based clients looking to invest in the UK on property transactions.

William Bowyer

Will is a Senior Associate within Lawrence Stephens’ Sports and Entertainment team. He is an experienced solicitor specialising in a mixture of non-contentious and contentious matters in sport. He delivers commercial and pragmatic advice for his clients and pays significant attention to the wider sporting context in which his clients sit. He represents elite footballers, talent management and commercial agencies, drivers, golfers, sports brands, tech brands and various other stakeholders in sport and entertainment. He prides himself on truly understanding his clients and their brand (personal or commercial) in order to give accurate and pragmatic advice. He works hard to deliver positive outcomes for his clients on complex and unique legal matters and relish working with the best athletes, entertainers and brands. He has an extensive network of professional and ancillary contacts in sport and ensure that all his clients benefit from those within his network as part of their wider advisory team. He has also been appointed to the Sport Resolutions Pro Bono service. A legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the service provides pro bono legal advice and assistance to athletes and individuals of limited financial means.

Laura Brown

Laura Brown is a Partner in the Real Estate Finance team at Lawrence Stephens. She has extensive experience advising lenders and borrowers on all aspects of real estate finance. Her practice includes domestic and cross-border transactions, spanning senior, mezzanine and whole loans. Laura's investment expertise encompasses all asset classes, from office spaces, retail units, mixed use and leisure facilities, industrial and business parks, hotels and PBSA, including landmark buildings and large portfolios. Laura excels in managing a wide range of development finance transactions, from large scale 'ground up' developments to small refurbishment projects. She also advise on planning assistance and development exit loans. Her client base includes financial institutions, senior lenders, mezzanine lenders, and bridging financiers.

Steve Clinning

Steve Clinning is a Partner in the Banking team at Lawrence Stephens. He has specialist experience having spent 12 years in the finance industry before deciding to retrain as a solicitor. He qualified in 2002 and have acted on matters across a mix of borrower and lender work. Steve advises both borrowers and lenders on a range of transactions including general property finance, corporate acquisition work, hotel finance, trading business finance, development finance and asset finance, and have established long-term partnerships with several high-volume lending clients. His experience gained from working for lenders gives me him unique insight into how they approach questions of risk and security. This insight brings an extra dimension to his advice on transactions to both lenders and borrowers and ensures that transactions progress smoothly from instruction through to completion.

Jake Cohen

Jake is a Senior Associate in the Sports & Entertainment team at Lawrence Stephens. He acts for clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters. He acts on high-profile matters within sport and his calm, direct and focused approach coupled with his strong commercial background and experience working with key stakeholders across the global sporting industry enables him to communicate and distill complex legal matters into practical advice in an engaging, accessible and actionable way. he specialises in advising clients on commercial, image rights, employment, complex regulatory and cross-border matters in addition to acting for clients in disputes before The Football Association (FA), FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Given the international nature of his work, he frequently collaborate with colleagues from a variety of different countries, jurisdictions and backgrounds. He is passionate about ensuring that costs are not a barrier to receiving top legal advice and access to justice and he regularly provides pro bono assistance to young athletes and entrepreneurs. Additionally, he has been a member of the American Bar Association’s Military Pro Bono Project since qualifying as a lawyer and have been appointed to the Sport Resolutions Pro Bono Service.

Ann Ebberson

Ann Ebberson is a Partner and Head of the Real Estate Finance team at Lawrence Stephens. She has a wealth of experience working on real estate finance deals, particularly development finance both ground up and PD development, property acquisitions, title rectifications and working with litigation colleagues on complex disputes which involve real estate and finance. She act for a range of banks, lending institutions, fixed charge receivers, developers, property companies and individuals.

Alex Edwards

Alex Edwards is a Partner in the Banking team at Lawrence Stephens. He has over 10 years’ post qualification experience acting for a wide range of lenders, financial institutions, sponsors and corporate borrowers on all forms of finance transactions ranging from £100,000 up to £80m, with a particular focus on real estate finance. Alex advises on senior and mezzanine loan origination, equity investments, loan restructuring and enforcement across a wide variety of asset classes and often with cross border elements, regularly working with lawyers in off shore jurisdictions such as the BVI, Guernsey and Luxembourg. He advises developers and funders on real estate development projects and in addition to documenting and negotiating acquisition and development finance documents, he also advise on joint venture agreements and the preparation and negotiation of industry standard and bespoke construction documents.

Matthew Hind

Matthew Hind is a Partner in the Commercial Real Estate team at Lawrence Stephens. He specialises in general commercial real estate with a mixture of investment, development, finance, occupier, and management work. He also has considerable experience dealing with distressed real estate on behalf of banks and insolvency practitioners.

Milana Katz

Milana Katz is a Partner in the Banking team at Lawrence Stephens. She specialises in real estate finance and corporate lending. Her client portfolio comprises of major UK banks, alternative lenders, funds and borrowers. Since qualifying into the Banking team at Lawrence Stephens in November 2019, she has developed her real estate finance banking practice by acting for clients on term and bridging facilities on both a regulated and unregulated basis to enable the completion of purchases, refinances and developments across a variety of real estate asset classes including residential properties, hotels, student accommodations, nurseries and care homes. She has extensive experience in advising on bilateral and syndicated loans as well as funding lines and loan-on-loan facilities. Milana regularly complete deals with cross border elements where she instruct lawyers in jurisdictions such as the BVI, Jersey, Guernsey, Scotland and RAK ICC to provide capacity and authority legal opinions. On the corporate lending side, she continues to assist lenders and borrowers alike on revolving credit facilities and other financial arrangements to help meet the businesses’ expansion plans and working capital requirements.

Nickhil Mandora

Nickhil Mandora is a Partner in the Commercial Real Estate team and leads the Retail and Hospitality sector group at Lawrence Stephens. He acts for a wide variety of clients ranging from retail landlords and tenants, to institutional lenders and property developers. He has particular experience of Retail and Industrial properties, acting for both buyers and sellers. He has developed a particular expertise in advising international retail chains opening in the UK, advising major brands such as Canadian fashion retailer Garage, French outdoor sports brand Salomon, Canadian outdoor fashion retailer Arc'Teryx and Swedish rug and textile company Nordic Knots. His experience includes advising on lettings in many of the UK's best known retail outlets, including Battersea Power Station, London's Oxford Street and Mayfair and the Westfield and Arndale Shopping Centres.

Gregory Palos

Gregory Palos is a Partner and Head of the multi-disciplinary Financial Institutions sector group at Lawrence Stephens. This represents banks and other financial institutions in the regulated and non-regulated sectors. Gregory has extensive experience in real estate, secured lending, bridging and property finance acting for a wide range of companies, developers and investors. In addition to his work for Banks and other lenders, Gregory also holds the role of Head of International at the firm. Through this, Gregory also directs the international activities of Lawrence Stephens. He was also elected President of the European Lawyers group, a network of 17 European law firms. In this role, he directs and leads a programme of activity for these firms to encourage a close working relationship and offer a multi-jurisdiction, multi-disciplinary legal offering.

Mohit Pasricha

Mohit is Head of Sports & Entertainment at Lawrence Stephens, advising and representing a variety of sporting and entertainment clients within the industry. Within Sport, he regularly act for clients on a wide range of issues from player transfers, boxing promotional agreements, commercial opportunities (including image rights and endorsement agreements) to regulatory, brand protection and dispute matters. Within Entertainment, he advises music artists, actors, celebrities and influencers in relation to their commercial and endorsement agreements, ambassador agreements and global brand protection matters. His passion and determination go beyond the ordinary, making him much more than just a ‘lawyer’ to his clients. He is a trusted advisor to his clients, breaking barriers to connect and truly understand their objectives both ‘on-field’ and ‘off-field’. To complement his approach, he has developed a wide range other advisors, perfectly tailored to fulfilling his clients’ needs. Among them are first-class sports tax advisors and financial experts, essential to securing his clients’ success. As part of our commitment to champion equality of opportunity and access to justice, the firm has signed a memorandum of understanding with the University Campus of Football Business (UCFB). The UCFB is a college of the University of East London, a higher education institution offering undergraduate and postgraduate university degrees and executive education in the football and wider sports industries. As part of this initiative, Mo Pasricha and the wider Sports and Entertainment team will assist UCFB in the ongoing development and day-to-day running of a Sports Law Clinic at the Wembley and Etihad Stadiums on a pro bono basis and share practical knowledge from Lawrence Stephen’s sports lawyers on the application of sports law in the field of football, boxing, golf, motor racing and basketball. This three-year agreement formalises an ongoing relationship that began in 2019; the team has already provided pro bono advice to over 150 athletes, players and coaches who have attended courses at UCFB. Mohit and his team have also been appointed to the Sport Resolutions Pro Bono service. A legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the service provides pro bono legal advice and assistance to athletes and individuals of limited financial means.

Angelique Richardson

Angelique is a Senior Associate in the Sports & Entertainment team at Lawrence Stephens. As a former elite athlete competing in synchronised swimming and fin-swimming, she is able to bring a unique perspective to her practice and her athlete clients. She represents a number of professional athletes on a wide range of matters including high-profile boxing promotional agreements, anti-doping disputes, and multi-million pound arbitrations. For both athletes and talent in the entertainment and media space, she provides commercial and holistic advice in relation to reputation management, strategy and career development. As one of the UK's leading sports lawyers, she is now a trusted advisor to a number of notable sports and entertainment clients. She has also been appointed to the Sport Resolutions Pro Bono service. A legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the service provides pro bono legal advice and assistance to athletes and individuals of limited financial means.

Danny Schwarz

Danny is a Partner and leads the Commercial Real Estate team at Lawrence Stephens. He deals with all aspects of commercial property investment, acquisitions and disposals, development, landlord and tenant work and property management. He also works closely with the firm’s Corporate department on the property aspects of transactions.

Abtin Yeganeh

Abtin Yeganeh is a Partner and Head of Real Estate Disputes and Secured Recoveries at Lawrence Stephens. He advises on a broad range of real estate and commercial disputes, including secured recoveries, party wall and developer claims, trespass, rights to light matters, professional negligence, and landlord and tenant disputes. His experience covers breaches of covenant, possession and forfeiture claims, insolvency-related issues, debt recovery, contested lease renewals, and dilapidations. Abtin has successfully represented clients in the High Court and has been involved in a number of successful appeals before the Court of Appeal. His clients include lenders, investors, commercial landlords, local authorities, and insolvency practitioners.