I have been advising and assisting social enterprises, charities, community groups and all manner of not-for-profit organisations for over 25 years. My specialist areas are legal structures, governance, and regulatory issues.

In practice, my work commonly involves all or some of the following:

• Explaining in non-legal language what a group's options are in terms of legal structure, and helping them decide which to adopt;
• Drafting constitutions, company mem and arts, partnership agreements, trust deeds and all manner of governing documents;
• Analysing and explaining existing constitutions;
• Advising on the availability and impact of charitable status, including the power to trade;
• Setting up trading subsidiaries for charities;
• Setting up charitable arms for trading social enterprises;
• Converting organisations from one legal status to another;
• Amending, up-dating and improving legal structures;
• Re-writing archaic documents in plain English;
• Undertaking constitutional health checks;
• Advising on alternative governance models when an organisation's structure is no longer fit for purpose.

I offer comprehensive registration services for companies, charities and community interest companies (CICs), and provide any documentation needed for other purposes such as passing a special resolution to amend a company's mem and arts. Everything comes with clear instructions and guidance.

In additional to technical legal issues, I also advise groups on essential governance issues such as:

• Ownership
• Management
• Accountability
• Decision-making
• Managing the transition from grant dependency to self-sustainability

.... matters that frequently are given insufficient attention when an organisation's legal structure is under consideration.

I can also undertake or contribute to business plans.