Browne Jacobson LLP

Browne Jacobson LLP

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Peter Allen

Peter Allen

Peter specialises in advising on corporate transactions of all kinds, particularly M&A and complex joint ventures – most often acting for owners and managers of private businesses when selling to trade or financial buyers. Whilst he operates across sector lines, he has particular experience of advising on deals in the food and beverage and healthcare sectors. Peter has a strong reputation with clients and fellow market practitioners for his pragmatic, constructive and commercial approach on transactions.
Lee Ashwood

Lee Ashwood

Lee has many years’ experience of providing pragmatic advice to well-known national and international businesses to assist them with human resources / employee relation issues, change management programmes and strategic projects. He also has extensive experience as an Employment Tribunal litigator having acted on over 800 cases, including discrimination and whistleblowing, TUPE claims, and class actions. Over time, Lee has developed an in-depth knowledge of three industries: residential care; logistics and warehousing; and retail. Lee is the co-organiser of regular networking events for members of the business community (business-owners, MDs, FDs or senior executives) who share an interest in cycling - the Manchester Cycling Network and also a Junior Parkrun Run Director.
Darren Ashworth

Darren Ashworth

Darren has considerable experience of advising on a broad range of real estate matters. During his career, he has spent time in house working with an international developer and in a management role at a local authority. Darren also has project management qualifications. Darren advises a variety of clients, including property investors and developers, government bodies, local authorities and other public sector organisations, registered providers, business owners and sporting organisations. Darren acts on development and regeneration schemes, property acquisitions and disposals and landlord and tenant work. He has experience of dealing with the real estate aspects of corporate work and acting for both borrowers and lenders on bespoke lending transactions. His career highlights include working on real estate aspects of the London 2012 Olympics project, assisting a football club with a large development and acting for both public and private sector bodies on a number of major development and regeneration schemes.
Ben Bentley

Ben Bentley

Ben is an accomplished Partner Barrister working in the firm’s in-house advocacy team since his call to the Bar in 2008. He routinely appears in court to conduct trials, coroner’s inquests and to prosecute on behalf of government regulatory agencies at various tribunals. He is adept at drafting court pleadings, advising on issues of liability and quantum in personal injury matters, and handling complex civil procedure applications. He has had considerable success in employer and public liability matters in court and has also achieved notable victories defending against credit hire claims. He is additionally experienced in dealing with costs matters, particularly in challenging the recovery of after the event insurance premiums. Ben’s education practice also extends to prosecution on behalf of the National College for Teaching & Leadership; and advising and advocating at all levels of Tribunal in respect to Special Educational Needs and Disability Discrimination matters.
Tom Briant-Evans

Tom Briant-Evans

Tom is a senior associate in the education team and has been involved in the sector for almost 10 years. Although Tom regularly advises maintained and independent schools his focus is primarily on the academy sector where, having trained as a corporate lawyer, he specialises in corporate and commercial advice to academy trusts. Tom has built up considerable experience in advising trusts on incorporations, conversions, transfers and merger projects and along the way has dealt with all types of school including special, PFI, AP, VA, VC, foundation and trust schools as well as advising on numerous free school projects. In addition to conversion work, Tom has been involved in several complex and high-profile re-brokerage matters acting on behalf of DfE appointed trustees. Away from the transactional side of his practice, Tom regularly supports trusts with amendments to their articles of association, funding agreements and wider governance issues. Tom also advises trusts on their commercial dealings be it through the incorporation of trading subsidiaries or through the establishment of robust commercial contacts and SLAs with third-party providers.
Ryan Brown

Ryan Brown

Ryan is a partner in our corporate team and is based in Manchester. He was noted as a ‘star in the making’ by The Legal 500 in 2021. Ryan advises on all aspects of corporate law but has a particular focus on private equity transactions (acting for investors, investees and management teams) and complex international M&A. Ryan has extensive experience preparing companies, shareholders and management teams for an exit. He is seen by many of his clients as an extension of their senior management team and is regularly used by his clients as a sounding board for strategic decisions, particularly those relating to incentivising senior employees, M&A, re-organisations and succession planning. He also supports a number of large corporates with their M&A strategy. Ryan’s practice covers various sectors but some of his notable clients on the private equity side include Palatine Private Equity, Maven Capital Partners and Apiary Capital and on the corporate side include Edit Agency, the CTS Group, Triangle Fire Systems and Access Creative College. Before becoming a partner, he was shortlisted for “Lawyer of the Year” at the Insider North West Young Professionals Awards 2020, the Made In Manchester Awards 2020 and the JCI Manchester Young Talent Awards 2020. He has also produced some topical thought leadership articles on the pitfalls of vendor due diligence in the context of W&I insurance and how retentions could be unlocked by utilising insurance products.
Christian Dingwall

Christian Dingwall

Christian qualified as a solicitor in 1986 and joined Browne Jacobson in 2019 as a partner in its Commercial Health team.  He advises health and social care clients, including many NHS trusts, foundation trusts, commissioners and other bodies, about commercial and corporate law, governance, compliance and regulation. Christian specialises in organisational and service transformation in the NHS and wider health sector, including, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, integrated care partnerships and reconfiguration.   Legal directories rate him as a top lawyer for health transactions.
Rebecca Hainsworth

Rebecca Hainsworth

Rebecca is a specialist commercial healthcare lawyer advising all types of healthcare organisations across the sector (NHS, independent sector, social care, voluntary sector, primary care and suppliers to the market).  Rebecca specialises in advising clients on commercial and governance matters including corporate governance, mergers and reorganisations, competition law, income generation, commercial contracts and joint ventures / collaborations. Rebecca has been the operational lead lawyer on multiple major NHS transformation projects including mergers between NHS trusts / foundation trusts, creation of shared services collaboratives and the establishment of Integrated Care Systems. In 2023 Rebecca was named “Lawyer of the Year” at the Made in Manchester awards and is a member of the Pro-Manchester Healthcare committee. She has previously worked in-house at NHS Improvement / Monitor, the Care Quality Commission and the Government Legal Department.
Daljit Kaur

Daljit Kaur

Senior Associate, Daljit, joined Browne Jacobson following over 11 years in local government and works within the firm’s Business Services team supporting our education clients. She specialises in providing pastoral advice to schools, academies and educational establishments within the education sector as well providing support for appeals against EHC Plans and Disability Discrimination in the First Tier Tribunal. She also advises clients on Freedom of Information requests and Data Protection.
Paul Kirkpatrick

Paul Kirkpatrick

Paul joined the Commercial Dispute Resolution Team in Manchester in 2020 having previously led Dispute Resolution teams at national commercial law firms, based in the Midlands and the South East respectively. Paul acts for major corporates, working closely with in-house teams and General Counsel to achieve commercial resolutions to business-critical issues. Paul acts as the lead-partner on a wide variety of commercial matters, and takes overall responsibility for numerous key client relationships. Paul specialising in high-value, complex litigation, often with an international dimension. He advises on a wide variety of commercial and contractual matters, including disputes involving: breach of contract, professional negligence, breach of warranty, shareholders’ disputes, breach of confidence and numerous other commercial issues, frequently involving foreign jurisdictions. He has expertise in the automotive sector and has a wealth of experience in cross-border disputes and corporate litigation. His experience includes representing clients from pre-action through to trial and injunctive proceedings. Paul also has a substantial amount of experience in resolving disputes through alternative dispute resolution, including leading numerous mediations, without prejudice meetings and multi-party round-table discussions.
Michael Mousdale

Michael Mousdale

Mike is a partner in our government and infrastructure team. Mike specialises in public procurement, commercial public sector projects and leads our Waste and Recycling Group. He is recognised as a leading expert in local government law and public procurement. Mike advises on innovative transactional work for public sector bodies and those who supply to the public sector. After an early career in local government, Mike became a leading procurement and projects lawyer, advising upon many of the first PFI/PPP projects and delivering some of the most innovative deals in the public sector, including the first LLP structured partnership Kier Sheffield LLP and a number of strategic partnerships (including joint ventures arrangements under the One Barnet programme). Mike has advised on a number of landmark PFI deals, including the Greater Manchester and Merseyside Waste schemes, the Greater Manchester Police project and a number of schools projects, including the first all secondary school estate project (Haringey), the first Voluntary Aided project (Cardinal Heenan in Leeds) and the first SEN PFI (Salford). Mike is a regular speaker on procurement and alternative delivery vehicles for organisations such as CIPF An and White Paper. He wrote the Legal Guidance on collaboration for the Welsh Local Government Association and recently authored a guide on Insourcing for CIPFA.