McKees

Senior Partner: Leonard Edgar

Managing Partner: Chris Ross

Number of partners: 6

Number of consultants: 2

Number of associates: 3

Number of assistants: 2

Number of other fee-earners: 14

Areas of practice:

Banking/Finance: 25%

Litigation: 25%

Corporate/Commercial: 25%

Real Estate/Property: 25%

Contacts

Banking & Finance: Avril McCammon and Donald Thompson

Corporate/M&A: Julie Leeburn

Dispute Resolution: Chris Ross, Jill Annett

Employment: Andrea McCann

Intellectual Property/Information Technology: Philip McBride

Licensing: Andrea McCann, Linus Murray

Personal Injury — Defendant: Leonard Edgar

Personal Injury — Plaintiff: Chris Ross

Real Estate: Donald Thompson

Restructuring/Insolvency: Avril McCammon, Jill Annett

Energy: Julie Leeburn, Philip McBride

The Firm

McKees is a leading independent commercial law firm with a multi-jurisdictional team. With a specialist capability in financial services, dispute resolution, real estate and corporate legal services, the team acts for a wide range of local and international clients. The firm has strategic alliances with full-service law firms in the Republic of Ireland, UK, Europe and the United States. Via these strategic alliances, McKees can offer a complete legal service to clients throughout the island of Ireland and further afield.

Principal Areas of Work

Banking & Finance:

All types of secured lending are undertaken for UK, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland lending institutions. The team advises UK, Irish and overseas banks and borrowers on a wide range of personal and corporate lending matters, including complex group arrangements and diverse financial structures. The firm has developed a specialist remortgage service and acts for ten of the major lenders in the UK market.

Corporate/M&A:

The team advises on corporate and commercial work, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, management buyouts and buy-ins, financing, corporate restructuring, venture capital, shareholder issues and all forms of commercial agreements in a wide range of sectors.

Dispute Resolution:

The team is skilled in running all forms of dispute resolution including litigation, arbitration and mediation, avoiding court intervention where possible by seeking constructive and early resolution of disputes. We will however adopt a robust approach when the client and the dispute requires this. The team has expertise in resolving all manner of finance, contract, construction and property disputes.

Employment:

We advise clients on all employment and human resource matters by offering accessible and pragmatic advice through to representation at Tribunal hearings. The team advises on all aspects of employment law including unfair dismissal, discrimination, restructuring/redundancy and TUPE.

Intellectual Property/Information Technology:

The firm provides clients with a wide range of IP and IT services including drafting website terms of use and terms and conditions for e-commerce, privacy and data protection policies, standard software, licensing agreements/mobile application agreements, domain name and trademark advice and registrations, non-disclosure agreements/confidentiality agreements, breach of copyright, trademark passing off and defamation actions.

Licensing:

The firm is one of the leading legal practices in the area of liquor licensing and has a long history of acting for local independent chains and also for a number of individual licensees in the hospitality, leisure and retail sectors.

Personal Injury: Litigation

We act for both private individuals and Legal Expenses Insurers in relation to an extensive range of clinical negligence and personal injury claims, including road traffic, employers’ liability and public liability claims.

Personal Injury: Defendant

The firm acts for several major insurers in relation to motor claims, employer’s liability and public liability claims. The firm specialises in high value catastrophic claims where a pro-active approach and early intervention are crucial in obtaining the best possible result for clients. Specialist legal advice is also provided to assist insurers involved in indemnity, mis-selling and fraud disputes.

Real Estate:

We provide NI and English legal advice on planning, site acquisition, development and the purchase and sale of shopping centres, retail premises, industrial parks, multi-let buildings and hotels as well as dealing with ongoing landlord and tenant matters, option agreements and joint ventures. We have also developed expertise in the transfer of properties to SIPP/SASS pension schemes. Our team has expertise in building and construction contracts, and in dealing with matters appearing before arbitrators and tribunals.

Restructuring/Insolvency:

The team advises lenders, financial institutions and insolvency practitioners on a wide range of issues including restructuring of existing facilities. The team represents administrators, liquidators, supervisors of voluntary arrangements, receivers and trustees in bankruptcy.

Energy:

The team has extensive experience of working with generators, developers, banks, local authorities, landowners and funders.Experience includes advising on project development and finance, sale and purchase of energy projects, power generation agreements, renewables, energy trading and dispute resolution by way of expert determination.