Event Information

Malcolm Lynch is a partner in our charity and social economy team at Wrigleys Solicitors LLP.

Malcolm is a partner at Wrigleys and head of the Charity and Social Economy Team.  He is a charity commercial lawyer and was an executive committee member of the Charity Law Association until June 2013.  He qualified in 1983.

Malcolm advises a wide range of local, national and international charities on charity law and relations with the Charity Commission, charity trading, fundraising, legal structures, social investment, social enterprise, mergers and governance. He is known for his lateral thinking and innovative approach to clients' problems. 

He is recognised by the National Legal Directories, Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners, as an expert in Charity Law.  He is a trustee of Leeds Youth Opera. 

Debra has worked in the charitable and voluntary sector for over 30 years. Amongst numerous other roles, she is Co-Chair of the Soldiering on Awards alongside General the Lord Dannatt. She is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, one of the Prince's Foundation Charities, and a trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation. She is also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). She has served as a trustee of several charities including being the co-founder of the Small Charities Coalition and was its first Chair. She served on the Charity Commission's SORP committee for over 7 years and was the Vice-Chair of Governors of Whiteknights primary school for 6 years.

She is a renowned public speaker with many years' experience of training and coaching and internationally published author of several books on management and leadership including It's Tough at the Top; The Pleasure and the Pain; It's Murder in Management and It's a Battle on the Board. Debra has a regular monthly column in Third Sector magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

Lizzy is the National Trust’s Head of Climate and Environment, leading the Trust’s response to climate change, including developing the carbon policy and putting in place appropriate adaptive measures for current and future climate impacts. She also heads the environmental management team, which works to minimise the environmental footprint of the National Trust’s many places and activities through reducing energy and water use, ensuring a more sustainable approach to resource use, and preventing pollution. Lizzy’s work plays an important role in ensuring the National Trust can deliver its purpose – to care for, and provide access to, beauty, history and nature, for everyone, forever.

Lizzy has a long career in the environmental field, starting in the paper mills in Scotland before joining the civil service, first in Scottish Natural Heritage, and then in Defra. She joined the National Trust in 2004 as a regional environmental adviser, and took up her current role 10 years ago.

Fiona is a partner in our charities and social economy team at Wrigleys Solicitors LLP.

Fiona advises charities and social enterprises on all aspects of charity and company law and governance, commercial arrangements, trading and fundraising, mergers and collaborative working.

Fiona has previously been a trustee on several charity boards as well as being the in house lawyer for a national charity.

Daniel is a solicitor in our charities and social economy team.

Daniel qualified into the Charities and Social Economy team in September 2020, having trained at Wrigleys.

Daniel has experience working with a range of charitable organisations and social enterprises, including community benefit societies and community interest companies, advising on formation, structures, governance and trustee duties. Daniel is a member of the firm’s community-led housing, students’ unions and societies teams.

Daniel is a member of the Charity Law Association and co-chairs the Wrigleys fundraising committee.

Peter is a partner in our charities and social economy team

Peter advises charities, their trading subsidiaries, public bodies, other not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises. He also works closely with a number of social and impact finance institutions.

His areas of work cover advising on:

• Distributing or raising social finance, including in relation to bilateral and multi funder loan arrangements, share and bond issues and other debt and equity investments.
• Structural transactions such as mergers, reorganisations and joint ventures.
• Operational matters including commercial contracts, data protection, intellectual property, agreements for services, subcontracting and funding arrangements.

Peter is a member of the Charity Law Association.

Michael is an associate within our charities and social economy team at Wrigleys

Mike advises charities, their trading subsidiaries, public bodies, other not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises.

Mike’s areas of work include:

• Structural transactions such as mergers, reorganisations and joint ventures.
• Operational and commercial matters including agreements for services, subcontracting and funding arrangements with third parties.
• Raising social finance, including in relation to share and bond issues.

Joanna Blackman is an associate in the charities and social economy team at Wrigleys

Formerly a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments, Joanna started her career as a fund manager, working for a number of years for fund management firms in London and nationally before re-training as a solicitor.

Joanna advises charities, their trading subsidiaries, and social enterprises on a wide range of charity law and other legal matters, including providing governance support and trustee training, advising on registrations and constitutional amendments, and structural transactions such as incorporations, mergers, and asset transfers. She has a particular interest in the health and social care sector, and specialises in advising almshouse charities and other charitable organisations with permanent endowment and complex or special trusts.

Joanna is a member of the Charity Law Association and is recognised as a Recommended Lawyer by the Legal 500 directory. She is also a trustee of a Leeds based charity which assists young people who are experiencing financial hardship by providing grants to support education and training.

Joanna is a partner at Sayer Vincent where she is senior statutory auditor and independent examiner for a portfolio of charities and other social purpose organisations. Joanna is Chair of the ICAEW Charity committee, which she has been a member of since 2015. She is also a member of the Charities SORP committee and Chair of the Charity Practitioners’ Forum. She is a trustee of Farleigh Hospice, where she chairs the Financial Governance committee.

Nat is a partner in our charities and social economy team.

Nat has been at Wrigleys for 15 years, and specialises in charity law, including governance, Charity Commission consents, serious incident reporting, setting up charities and registering them with the Charity Commission, charity mergers and de-mergers, and trustee duties amongst other areas.  She works with all sorts of charities, and has a particular interest in faith-based charities and students’ unions.

Jane Marriott is the Director of Harewood House Trust, an educational charity, responsible for the beautiful 18th-century House and Grounds situated only 7 miles from Leeds city centre and open to the public all year round. Harewood is one of ten Treasure Houses of England and an Arts Council England accredited museum with outstanding historic collections. Over the past 30 years, Harewood has built up a significant reputation for an award-winning contemporary art programme. Within the 140 acres of Grade 1 listed landscape, there are formal gardens, a walled garden and a rare and endangered living Bird Collection. The Trust’s ambition, in reimagining the country house for the 21st century, is to make Heritage relevant and to use Harewood’s rich assets to enrich all of our lives.

Prior to this, Jane was the Managing Director of Yorkshire’s ‘Museum of the Year’ The Hepworth, Wakefield, and was the driving force behind the launch of a major new Hepworth Gallery Garden designed by Tom Stuart Smith and The Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. Before moving up to Yorkshire, Jane was the Director of the Royal Academy Trust and Director of Development at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London, where she doubled the annual revenue contribution and raised over £37million for one of the most significant capital campaigns in the Academy's history. She also directed the opening of the Keeper’s House and led RA’s international strategy in South East Asia.

Jane has worked within the arts sector for over 24 years, including a key role in the highly successful opening of Tate Modern. Prior to that she worked for leading publishers John Wiley & Sons.

A History of Art graduate, a qualified arts marketeer, and a Fellow of the RSA, Jane has made regular Conference and TV appearances and is currently Chair of the Treasure Houses of England. She has also been a Trustee of The Reading Agency and The Hepworth Wakefield Garden.

Sylvie is over 18 years qualified and is a partner at Wrigleys in our charity and social economy team. She advises on a wide range of charity law matters, including the establishment of charities, trustee duties and governance, restructuring, trading issues and setting up and running trading subsidiaries, fundraising and commercial participation, charity law considerations for religious organisations, issues concerning heritage charities (particularly stately homes), Gift Aid and general advice on tax-efficient giving (and anti-avoidance provisions), public benefit, issues facing schools, cross-border issues, disputes involving charities and mergers between charities.

Sylvie is recognised as a first tier charity lawyer (band 1) in the national legal directory Chambers & Partners and as a ‘leading individual’ in Legal 500. She is a member of the Charity Law Association, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and the Ecclesiastical Law Society, and is trustee and/or honorary company secretary of a number of charities and sector bodies.