Sally is a Partner in the Corporate, Commercial and Life Sciences teams.
Sally has had a distinguished career that started in a top 10 law firm and included several years in Hong Kong. After 10 years as a corporate lawyer in private practice Sally moved inhouse for 13 years as Head of Legal for a multi-national technology company which was successfully sold for £82m in 2012.
Sally then founded her own boutique corporate law firm in Oxford and over the course of 13 years her team acted for clients in the life sciences sector and the broader business community.
In 2023 Sally joined her team with Gardner Leader LLP and she is now leading the growth of our Oxford office.
Sally is recognised as an astute, versatile lawyer. She has a well-earned reputation for providing pragmatic, commercial advice.
Sally likes to act for family-owned or entrepreneur led businesses but is just as at home working with large corporates and UK subsidiaries of multi-national and overseas listed companies.
Corporate
Sally’s career has covered the full range of corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions (often with earn-outs), business start-ups, restructurings, shareholder arrangements and exit, employee incentives including EMI share option schemes and growth shares, compliance and risk management and joint ventures.
Sally has acted for innovation funds, founders and investors in life sciences companies including university spin-outs from Oxford and London Universities.
Commercial
Sally is an expert on data licencing but also has 25 years of experience of general commercial matters including all forms of commercial contracts and IP licensing.
Work Highlights
- Advising Contengo Limited, the specialist provider of technology solutions for financial advisers, on its acquisition by FE fundinfo, a leading global funds data and technology business. Full press release here.
- Acting for the shareholders of OxDevice Limited on their exit to private equity backed Kaleidex. Full press release here.
- Advising the shareholders of I-CAN Qualifications Limited (ICQ Awards). Full press release here.
- Advising the lead investors in an Oxford university spinout commercialising AI-enabled imaging to help diagnose heart problems
- Advising an Oxford university spinout developing products from spiders’ silk on its Series A funding and restructuring.
- Advising a leading biological sciences company (spun out from UCL) focusing on infant health on its corporate matters.
- Advising the Oxford Academic Health Science Centre on suitable legal structures. OAHSC is made up of Oxford Brookes University, Oxford Health NHS Trust, OUH and the University of Oxford.
- Advising the UK subsidiary of M3 Global Research on its corporate and commercial matters (including M & A).
- Advising an Oxford university spinout developing novel drug/device combinations for retinal disorders on general corporate and commercial matters.
- Advising a leading German radiopharmaceuticals company that has developed novel next generation therapeutics to visualise and treat cancer on its UK corporate and commercial affairs
- Acting for the sellers of a technology company in the gambling industry to an Australian listed buyer
- Acting for the shareholders of OCC on the exit to System C. Full press release here.
- Acting for the UK subsidiary of a US listed company acquiring various UK and European subsidiaries
- Acting for the sellers of a UK data company to a US listed buyer for £82m
- Acting for the sellers of a UK manufacturing company to a division of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (part of the Chinese government)