Professional Services
We provide comprehensive legal support to a wide range of professional services organisations, including accountancy practices, independent financial advisers (IFAs), law firms, consultants, advisory specialists, and insurance brokers.
Our dedicated team has extensive experience advising professional service businesses on both contentious and non-contentious matters. We regularly assist clients with issues such as data protection and privacy compliance, mergers and acquisitions, employment law and workforce management, regulatory obligations, and business succession planning - including transitions to Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs).
As a professional services firm ourselves, we understand the pressures and priorities that shape your business - from maintaining client confidence to managing risk. We work as an extension of your team, providing pragmatic, commercially focused legal advice that aligns with your strategic objectives. We form long-standing partnerships with our clients, built on trust, and transparency, helping you to operate efficiently, manage risk effectively, ultimately to achieve sustainable commercial success.
We assist our clients with a variety of matters, including all manner of mergers, acquisitions, disposals and joint ventures. We also assist in the day to day operations which your business may require, or in helping your business take the next step on its growth journey, whether this is with your debt finance arrangements (such as loan and re-financing agreements), capital or equity investment, your commercial contracts, or your regulatory compliance (such as data protection advice).
We aim to mix legal necessity with commercial reality, and approach each matter so as to provide you with the most efficient, but also most effective advice, putting your needs at the heart of the work we do, so your goals can be met with as quickly, and in as straightforward a way as possible.
We act for clients in the professional services sector in all areas of employment law, including preparing bespoke employment contracts and policies tailored to the unique needs in this arena; managing staff; advising on employment disputes, termination and recruitment; acting in employment tribunal litigation and immigration assistance.
With our comprehensive understanding of the sector, we swiftly navigate complex workplace matters to ensure, where possible, a swift, practical resolution is reached. Our experience in the sector means our solicitors give relevant, specialist, practical and up to the minute advice on situations in your business as they develop.
Our team provides support to professionals in the local area and beyond. We are able to assist accountants, architects, surveyors, financial advisors, estate agent, law firms and other professionals both on an individual or corporate basis. We are sensitive to the reputational and regulatory considerations which effect professionals. We are also experienced with bringing claims against professionals.
Our team deals with:
- Professional negligence disputes including:
- Alleged errors in design, analysis or advice
- Failure to meet professional standards
- Claims involving financial losses
- Accountancy, Audit and Tax Professional disputes
- Financial and Investment Professional disputes
- Corporate / Partnership and LLP disputes
- Engagement contract disputes
- Defamation
- Team moves
- Enforcement of restrictive covenants, including emergency injunctive relief
We work alongside our clients on all their property needs, including taking new leases, assigning leases following Partner retirements and appointments, granting underleases to complimentary occupiers, buying and selling property and financing premises.
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What our clients say
Leathes Prior’s team is helpful and professional. Resolution-accredited Alisdair Douglas and rising star Simon Willis excel in divorce, financial remedy and private Children Act matters.
My heartfelt thanks go to you for guiding and advising me through the last two and a half years and for achieving a fair financial settlement for me. No mean feat given the complexity of the latter.
As always excellent, courteous, prompt and professional service.
I would just like to say that you have, over the past three years on this matter, looked after me exceptionally well. Thank you.
They give sound and practical advice on a range of private client matters with some strong lawyers on their books.
Just superb – great service, great communication, no gobbledegook.
Partner Alisdair Douglas leads the team and has almost 20 years’ experience in family law. He is an advanced member of the Family Law Panel, an accredited Resolution specialist in the areas of advanced financial provision and private children law, and a member of the Good Divorce Group in Norfolk.
The team listens carefully, is very professional and makes clients feel comfortable.
Excellent service and thorough responses.
Exemplary service and clear and accurate advice.
I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all your hard and professionalism throughout the proceedings. I always felt you were looking out for my best interests. It was a pleasure doing business with you and the company and will use you again should I need to and will recommend to others.
One of the best local firms.
UK GDPR Update: What the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 Means for Organisations
While several updates under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 came into force on 5 February 2026, the next key development for organisations is still to come. From 19 June 2026, organisations will be legally required to implement a formal complaint handling process for data protection matters. This is a significant shift, placing greater emphasis on resolving issues internally before they escalate to the regulator.
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Selling a Probate Property: A Guide for Executors
Acting as an Executor can feel daunting, especially if there is a property which needs to be sold as part of the estate administration process. If you have been appointed as an Executor and you are unsure where to begin, here are some key things to consider.
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Leathes Prior's Personal Injury & Clinical Negligence Team Secure Settlement for Client
Kate Smith (Senior Associate) and Kimberley Nelson (Paralegal) were instructed in relation to a workplace personal injury claim, and successfully secured a five-figure settled for the client.
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New Restrictions to Charitable Giving: What You Need to Know
Changes to UK tax law regarding charitable giving took effect from 6 April 2026. Following legislative amendments in the Finance Act 2025-26, the generous tax exemptions associated with charitable gifts - specifically Inheritance Tax (IHT) exemptions - will be restricted to gifts to UK-registered charities. Ejike Ndaiji, Partner in our Wills, Trusts, & Probate and Charities Team explains...
Employment Rights Act 2026: The New Trade Union Right Of Access - Will it matter?
The Government has now published its response to the “Make Work Pay: Trade Union Right of Access” consultation which means we are now one step closer to properly understanding what these new access rights really will be.
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Spring Statement 2026 - An Overview
With the Government having restricted itself to one fiscal event a year in the form of the Autumn Budget, the Spring Statement is perhaps not the dramatic moment it used to be. It is more a chance for the Government to respond to events and economic forecasts than to set policy for the future.
Charity of the Month: Sue Lambert Trust
Leathes Prior is delighted to be supporting the Sue Lambert Trust as our Charity of the Month for February 2026. Sue Lambert Trust is a leading charity in Norfolk offering free therapeutic counselling and support services to survivors of sexual violence and abuse.
Supreme Court ruling set to impact NHS - Children injured by NHS can claim damages for lifetime lost earnings
In February 2026, the Supreme Court passed a ruling which is set to significantly increase the amount of damages the NHS may have to pay for claims brought in respect of children injured at birth, as a result of medical negligence.
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The Value of Planning Ahead: LPAs & Court of Protection
Putting LPAs in place allows you to choose trusted people to make decisions for you if you lose capacity in the future. This avoids the need for loved ones to make a costly and time-consuming deputyship application to the Court of Protection. With more people likely to experience conditions affecting capacity, more families may need to turn to the Court for support where no LPAs are in place.
