Expertise
Sophie is a Solicitor in the construction team at Gateley Legal, specialising in contentious matters and dispute resolution.
Sophie has extensive experience in advising and acting for a broad range of clients including private clients, SMEs, Directors and partnerships.
She advises clients at any stage of a dispute, from identifying whether a client has a dispute to act on in the first place, to acting on behalf of clients in correspondence pre-action, all the way through to trial. Sophie is proactive and experienced in recognising and advising upon all methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution, as appropriate.
Sophie has experience of complex, multi-party litigation and regularly instructs counsel and experts of varied specialisms.
How do you help clients?
I help clients ascertain whether there are legal grounds for a dispute or not, and proactively advise them on whether I can foresee any disputes arising in the near future, helping them protect their position and, where possible, avoid disputes.
I guide and advise clients on strategy and how to deal with potential disputes, advising them at every stage of a claim and always bearing in mind any potential commercial outcomes.
I advise clients at each stage of litigation including keeping clients informed of their legal costs and potential exposure to liability for opponents’ or third parties’ costs.
Experience
- Acting for a limited company brought in as a third defendant where the claimant was seeking an account of its profits, as a result of the allegations against the first defendant who was allegedly in breach of the restrictive covenants under the Share Purchase Agreement.
- Actingfor 2 sellers of a company in relation to breaches of warranties and indemnities under a Share Purchase Agreement (“SPA”). The company was a parent company of a number of subsidiary companies scattered throughout the world, including, Thailand and Singapore.
- Submitting applications to amend the Register at Companies house and requesting an extension of time to file a legal charge at Companies House.
- Acting for the Executor of an estate which suffered loss at the hands of theft out of a client account from a solicitor. This included assisting in the successful recovery of some of the stolen monies under a recovery order from the Police. The solicitor was imprisoned as well as being struck off the Roll of Solicitors.
- Assistingon a matter which succeeded at Trial on behalf of a claim brought by a shareholder who had been unfairly dismissed as a director. The claim was one of breach of the duty of good faith within the shareholder agreement.