Amy Holt (Founder and Head of Legal)
Our mission is to provide cost-effective legal support, unburdening you from the day-to-day legal workload so you can focus on building your business. We are passionate about supporting your commercial goals – not point scoring or over-lawyering. City trained, but without the soaring and uncertain city fees. We want to see matters through from start to finish and will rattle cages where we need to. Mostly, we strive to be your trusted advisor, an extension of your team, in a way that works with your budget.
We advise clients in many sectors including tech, packaging, PR, publishing, fashion, data, pharmaceuticals, food and product design and delivery, and robotics. Our work is very diverse, including all types of commercial contracts (supply of goods and services, complex supply chain, manufacturing, co-development, license, assignment, concession, and collaboration agreements), creating and delivering brand protection strategies, implementating GDPR/DPA compliance requirements, preparing for business acquisition, advising on the risks/value of new product/services ideas. We also act as outsourced fractional Legal Counsel and GC, providing high quality legal support where there is limited need or resource to increase headcount.
A bit about my background – I studied law at Oxford before training at city law firm Hogan Lovells, qualifying into the commercial team where clients included Mars, Nintendo and Bauer Publishing. I was seconded to Save the Children UK and then John Lewis and Waitrose, which later turned into a permanent position. Over the next 5 years, I advised both retailers on the IP aspects of major marketing campaigns such as the famous Christmas ads, managed the global trade mark portfolios, negotiated key sponsorship and talent agreements (including the Olympic and Commonwealth Games sponsorship), drafted and negotiated customer and logistics agreements, and led on GDPR and privacy compliance. In the retail context, legal advice needed to be commercial, quickly delivered and decisive.
I completed the Financial Times’ Non-Executive Director diploma and have acted as a board advisor for a number of clients. Being a founder myself and with many start / scale ups as clients, I am able to provide advice and support through a distinctly entrepreneurial lens.
I was nominated as Sole Practitioner of the Year in The Lawyer Excellence Awards two years running, was a finalist in the Legal Innovation Awards and was recognised as a Rising Star in the Legal 500’s Powerlist. Holt Baker was shortlisted in the Legal Innovation Awards 2022 and winner Legal & Financial Advisory of the Year 2023 at the Corporate Livewire Innovation & Excellence Awards.
HOW CAN WE HELP?
Fractional Legal Counsel / GC
- Acting as your outsourced, on-demand Legal Counsel / GC – managing your legal risk and load to free you up to run your business.
- Bolstering your team during critical investment / M&A / pitching phases
Intellectual Property (IP)
- Developing strategies to realise and protect IP assets – what are your IP assets, how do you create value in those assets, and how do you reduce the risk of being copied?
- Exploiting IP rights –negotiating robust licence and assignment agreements.
Data Protection
- Advising on the impact of GDPR / DPA; including navigating compliance requirements, mitigating data breach risk, and allocating risk in third party contracts.
- Drafting customer facing privacy policies and collection notices for websites, apps etc.
Contracts
- Creating and unlocking value for businesses by ensuring the correct contractual terms are in place and avoiding restrictive terms which might impede business’ goals/profitability.
- Reviewing, drafting and negotiating a wide range of contracts including:
- shareholder, founder and partnership agreements;
- template agreements to establish and grow clients’ business including supply of goods and services, manufacturing, joint venture agreements;
- licence, assignment, and co-creative agreements to protect and exploit IP;
- complex supply chains from product/service creation to end customer / consumer contracts;
Brand protection
- Sponsorship, endorsement and talent agreements – extracting the most value from brand-related relationships.
- Advertising / marketing advice to support campaigns and product launches – minimising regulatory and reputational risk.