Meet the Team

Sally Addis – Director and Founder of Addis Law

Sally Addis is a versatile business lawyer and the founder of Addis Law. She has a well-earned reputation for providing pragmatic, commercially astute advice.  Whether Sally is advising a small local business or a large, international organisation, Sally’s advice helps her clients act decisively and get the best deal.

Sally has had a distinguished international career spanning over 25 years, practising corporate and commercial law in large international law firms in London and Hong Kong.  Sally founded Addis Law in 2011 and was soon after asked to advise her previous employer on a share sale valued at £82 million.  Since then Addis Law has grown and flourished with clients across the UK and internationally.

Sally’s work covers all aspects of the corporate lifecycle, commercial contracts, risk management and regulatory compliance, across a broad range of sectors.

Sally’s work includes advising large corporate clients, SMEs, charities, universities and private individuals on all aspects of the operation of their business including investments and disposals, university spin-outs, restructuring, joint ventures, shareholders agreements, private equity, brand protection, e-commerce and data protection and commercial agreements.

Sally volunteers as the Chair of Governors for a large local secondary school.

At Addis Law, Sally has led the following transactions:

• Acting for the lead investor, an EIS fund, investing into a spin out from the University of Oxford
• Acting for the purchaser (a US corporate) on the acquisition of a UK tech company (£9.5m)
• Acting for the seller of a stake in a UK manufacturing company to a division of the Chinese government (£8.5m)

Francesca Yardley – Solicitor

Francesca Yardley originally began her legal career as a corporate and private equity lawyer at a magic circle law firm working across their London, Stockholm and Tokyo offices. Francesca then pursued an in house career working with a global pharmaceutical company before joining an international ice cream manufacturer as sole general counsel.

With 15 years experience under her belt, Francesca now focuses on advising start up and scale up companies on employee incentive schemes, including EMI option scheme as well as other corporate law related matters.

In addition, to her legal career, Francesca is the co-Founder of tech start up, Threads, and was recently appointed as a Justice of the Peace in the Family Court.

Lisa Guppy – Solicitor

Friendly, personable and yet a formidable negotiator, Lisa is a senior lawyer at Addis Law whose career in commercial and corporate law now spans more than 20 years.  Lisa has had an international career practising law at the highest levels in large law firms in Australia and London.

Lisa’s work covers all aspects of the corporate lifecycle and is a diverse commercial practice, with a particular current emphasis on information technology and intellectual property.

Lisa’s work includes advising on corporate investments and disposals, private M&A, spin-outs, joint ventures and shareholders agreements, business financing arrangements, e-commerce, digital business and communications, data protection and information security, brand protection, licensing, technology transfer, franchising and outsourcing.

Lisa volunteers in her local community including acting as a governor and managing a local children’s sports team.

Most recently, Lisa has been working intensively with specific City clients on project-based secondments to act as in-house counsel.

Emma McParland – Commercial property lawyer

Emma McParland is a commercial property lawyer with over 20 years’ experience dealing with residential development, business leases, property aspects of company sales and purchases and property in general. Emma has worked in private practice and in-house for one of the top 5 national housebuilders.

Emma’s work for us covers all aspects of commercial property transactions including acting for landlord or tenant in business leases of offices, warehouses and shops and assignments of leases including as part of the sale or purchase of a business.

Emma has enjoyed volunteering as a school governor, she reads crime novels and likes walking.

Her career has included:

• Commercial re-mortgage for £1.1m which included grant of multiple leases to tenants to satisfy commercial lender’s requirements;
• Granting option to sell property with commercial lease of part to mitigate community infrastructure levy for an individual owner;
• Purchase of land for development with senior and junior financing for corporate client;
• Acting for community interest company in taking a lease of part with change of planning use;
• Investigating title to unlock valuable development land held under option in order to exercise option after nearly 10 years!

Catherine Flutsch – Knowledge Lawyer – Consultant

Catherine has had a varied career, both as a practicing lawyer and as a management expert. As a lawyer, Catherine practiced intellectual property and information technology in Sydney, Tokyo and London with some of the world’s leading law firms. As a management expert, Catherine headed the knowledge management department for a large international law firm – during which time Catherine and her team won many international awards and accolades.

Addis Law created the knowledge lawyer role for Catherine to harness her unique commercial, strategic, legal and cultural expertise. Catherine will not be practicing law – she will be supporting our lawyers, ensuring that we provide the best, most cost-effective services to our clients. In addition, Catherine will be supporting our clients with her expertise, to compliment our practising lawyers’ work, including developing pragmatic commercial strategies and support with negotiation.

Outside work Catherine volunteers as “street champion” to support her local community, particularly with covid related issues. She also writes Oxford’s leading culture blog, Quaere Living.

Alice Richardson – Paralegal

Alice assists mainly on corporate matters like share or asset purchases or sales, restructurings and other transactions involving the production of extensive documentation. She worked previously as a caseworker for an immigration law firm where she was responsible for researching case law, drafting documents, and writing arguments for all Human Rights applications to the Home Office. In this role, she also managed a project delivering free legal advice across community centres in London to those in need, a cause she is passionate about. She continues to run this service in North London, and has helped hundreds of people get access to legal advice in various matters.

Alice has extensive experience in issues surrounding legal linguistics. She is completing a PhD in forensic linguistics, investigating interpreting issues in immigration courts. Her primary research interests are in defending the rights of non-native English speakers in the UK judicial process.

Sangeeta Bahl – Practice Manager

Sangeeta is Addis Law’s practice manager.  Sangeeta has had over 10 years’ experience as a practice manager, primarily managing medical practices with particular emphasis on project management, patient safety, quality and confidentiality.  She has successfully managed a GP practice merger and a closure, a few IT system changes and Care Quality Commission inspections.

Sangeeta brings to Addis Law the most rigorous standards in practice management.  Sangeeta holds a First Class BSc in Applied Chemistry from Kingston University.

Sangeeta lives in Oxford and is married with two quite grown up children. She enjoys travelling and is often found in the gym in her spare time.