- Business Legal Services
- Banking & Finance Law
- Business Disputes
- Business Immigration Law
- Commercial Law
- Commercial Property Law
- Construction Law
- Corporate Law
- Data Protection & Privacy Law
- Employee Share Schemes
- Employment Law
- Financial Services Regulation
- Funding & Investment
- Insolvency & Corporate Recovery
- Intellectual Property
- IT & Commercial Technology Law
Business Legal Services
We offer a wide range of legal services for businesses of all sizes, with pricing plans designed for start-up, small and venture-backed businesses and medium to large businesses.
Banking & Finance Law
Business Disputes
- Overview
- Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Business Dispute Case Assessment
- Commercial Contract Disputes
- Commercial Property Disputes
- Construction & Engineering Disputes
- Defending Employment Tribunal claims
- Shareholder Disputes
- Intellectual Property Disputes
- Litigation & Arbitration
- Partnership Disputes
- Professional Negligence Claims
- Public Procurement Challenges
Business Immigration Law
We advise businesses, entrepreneurs, investors and educational establishments on all aspects of UK immigration law, from recruiting overseas staff to ensuring ongoing compliance obligations are being met with the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI).
Commercial Law
- Overview
- Agency Agreements
- Commercial Contracts
- Confidentiality & Non-Disclosure Agreements
- Franchise Law
- Intellectual Property in Commercial Contracts
- Joint Venture Agreements
- Sale & Distribution Agreements
- Service Agreements
- Subcontractor Agreements
- Supply of Goods Agreements
- Terms of Business
Commercial Property Law
Construction Law
Corporate Law
Data Protection & Privacy Law
Employee Share Schemes
Employment Law
- Overview
- Absence & Sickness Management
- Defending Employment Tribunal claims
- Discipline & Grievance Procedures
- Discrimination Claims
- Employee Share Schemes
- Employment Contracts
- Employment Status and IR35
- HR & Employment Law Training
- HR Compliance Audit
- Redundancies & Business Reorganisations
- Senior Employee Exits
- Settlement Agreements
- Transactions & TUPE
Financial Services Regulation
Funding & Investment
Insolvency & Corporate Recovery
Intellectual Property
IT & Commercial Technology Law
Business Life Cycle
Our Business Life Cycle is designed to guide you through the different situations you’re likely to encounter on your business journey.
Sectors
Our senior solicitors have built up a wealth of specialist sector knowledge throughout their careers. We appreciate that one size never fits all, which is why we leverage our team's sector knowledge through a multi-disciplinary approach to providing you with tailored and relevant advice. Our sector focused interest and experience enables us to provide up-to-the-minute advice and help you to anticipate the legal impact of potential future changes on your business.
Creative Industries
Our creative sector solicitors keep abreast of the latest cases, legislative changes, and industry developments, to ensure our clients receive smart, pragmatic, insightful, and tailored legal services. We provide expert legal advice and representation in relation to all creative endeavours, including clients in advertising and marketing, television, theatre, music, art, publishing, architecture, technology, and all spheres of design.
Energy, Utilities & Environment
Our energy, utilities and environment solicitors are expert legal advisers to the industry, including individual and institutional investors and funders, technical advisors, developers, entrepreneurs, utility firms, environmental and waste technology companies, landowners, aggregators, CICs, inventors and environmental scientists, contractors and suppliers and have vast experience in the sector.
Life Sciences
Our multi-disciplinary life sciences legal team has specific sector experience, and our life sciences lawyers cover a range of areas such as risk assessment and management, manufacturing and supply chain issues, compliance review and advice including product liability, intellectual property issues and the development of IP strategies, data protection and GDPR advice, licensing and contractual issues, financial advice and mergers and acquisitions, as well as disputes and litigation management.
Manufacturing & Engineering
Our manufacturing and engineering lawyers have an in-depth understanding of these sectors and the needs of businesses. We understand the vast and vital contribution manufacturing and engineering businesses make towards the British economy. Our solicitors partner with clients within these sectors to ensure their interests are protected and their commercial ambitions are achieved.
Public Sector
Whether you’re situated directly within the public sector or you’re a commercial partner, our public sector solicitors can help you with all areas of business law you’re likely to need advice on, from banking and finance, commercial tenders and contracts, dispute resolution, real estate, intellectual property, data protection, employment law and much more.
Retail & Luxury Brands
Whatever your business within the retail sector, our retail lawyers understand this challenging market and work across a range of areas including e-commerce, corporate and commercial, commercial property, dispute resolution and employment law to help advise and provide solutions for your business.
Sports
Our sports law solicitors have expertise in the latest sports law and they also understand the industry; including its structures, regulations, challenges, pressures, trends, and developments.We offer legal advice and representation to national governing bodies, international federations, sports clubs, and athletes in any sport, whether amateur or professional.
Start-ups
Our team of experienced senior solicitors are business and finance law specialists, with a proven track record in supporting start-ups - they have the legal skills and experience to help founders who want to get things right from day one. We act for start-up companies, entrepreneurs, founders, boards and individual directors of early-stage companies, financial institutions, and investors considering investment under the EIS and SEIS schemes.
Technology
Our expert technology solicitors advise both specialist technology companies as well as their partners, customers, and users. We understand the commercial issues involved in tech depend on the services and products involved, which is why we endeavour to understand your niche and its implications. Whether you are a crowdfunded start-up or a large multi-national, our dedicated team of technology specialists are adept at acting for you wherever and whenever technology defines or intersects your organisation.
Our Pricing & Service Plans
Our unique subscription plans coupled with our remote operating model allow us to deliver expert legal advice, from partner level lawyers, at a fraction of the cost compared with traditional law firms.Our Enterprise and On-Demand plans help you spread the cost of advice and access discounted rates, providing flexibility, peace of mind and plans that can scale with your business.
The City Plan
Our City service provides you flexible access to our experienced lawyers, with no fixed monthly cost and low hourly rates, from £290 per hour. Whatever legal assistance you need, we can help you and the cost of using our experienced lawyers will provide a significant saving compared to those associated with traditional law firms.
The Enterprise Plan
Our Enterprise subscription package is specifically designed for start-ups and smaller sized businesses. With a £215 monthly subscription fee and additional legal support from senior solicitors at £145 per hour, it includes 1-hour of free legal support per month which rolls over if unused.
The On-Demand Plan
Our On-Demand plan is a smarter way for high-growth and established businesses to get legal advice. A fully account managed quarterlysubscription service which provides you with priority access to experienced partner-level solicitors, recruited from top 100 UK law firms, whenever you need them, at an affordable and flexible budget set by you.
Fixed Fee Products
Solve common issues with our suite of fixed fee products, giving you clarity on costs and deliverables.
About Us
Harper James is a new breed of commercial law firm – a national law firm designed exclusively to champion ambitious and entrepreneurial businesses, enabling them to access expert legal advice at an affordable cost when they need it most. We work with start-ups through to established businesses that have been running for years or looking to scale, futurecorns and unicorns as well as those ready to sell and often build their next business.
Careers
Work with like-minded individuals and free from the bureaucracy of traditional law firms in a truly flexible workplace. We offer career opportunities for solicitors and business support professionals that meet your needs and evolve as you evolve.
Press & Media
Our solicitors are well-positioned to provide commentary on all manner of commercial legal issue and regularly contribute to both national, sector and industry press.
Join our team
Work with like-minded individuals and free from the bureaucracy of traditional law firms in a truly flexible workplace. We offer career opportunities for solicitors and business support professionals that meet your needs and evolve as you evolve.
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The latest news and insights from Harper James including our 'Meet the client' interview series, case studies, legal updates, events and webinars, podcasts, videos and spotlights on our solicitors.
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Watch and listen to our latest podcasts and videos featuring client and Harper James interviews and stories.
Knowledge Hub for Growth
Our free resource designed to help your business overcome challenges and realise its potential. Written by lawyers and business experts, these resources will help you decipher legal terminology and tackle key milestones from securing funding and growing your team, to protecting your ideas and expanding to new markets.
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Valuing a business isn’t as simple as looking at the retained earnings or total net assets – it is a subjective exercise that requires professional judgement!
You might need to know how to value a company UK for many reasons:
- Assessing the value of along-term incentive plan (LTIP).Learn more aboutwhat isLTIPused for in our focused article.
- Deciding to allocategifts of shares of private limited companyshareholding
- Placing the business up for sale, negotiating a potential buy-out project or securing fresh investment
Arriving at an accurate company valuation can be high stakes. You don’t want to undervalue the business and sell it short, nor do you wish to overstate the value.
AlternativewaystovalueaUKbusiness
Unfortunately, there isn’t one universal way to value a company.
The best option will depend on lots of factors, includingwhyyou need a valuation.
Pricetoearningsratio
One of the basic ways to reach a value is to look at your profits. A price to earnings ratio does just that by multiplying your profits after tax to arrive at a simple valuefigure.Forexample, if you use a ratio of four and make £500,000 post-tax, the business is worth £2 million.
However, this can be a bit complicated, as there isn’t a fixed ratio to apply.
High-growth businesses in sectors such as tech use a higher ratio, whereas a conventional firm like an estate agent would use a lower basis.
Contact the Harper James solicitors team for advice about the suitable price to earnings ratios for your business.
Basingabusinessvaluationonindustrysales
The next option is to look atstandardisedindustry rules of thumb – again, it’s a matter of opinion, so it’s well worth having legal advice before you start making decisions on this basis.
Retail is perhaps the most straightforward example.
Suppose a similar business with a comparable turnover, customer base, and number of outlets has been valued, and your profit rates are equal. In that case, you could opt for a rule of thumb valuation.
We would note that this is better used as a guide for internal decisions rather than a verified figure for a business sale or investment pitch.
Entrycostcompanycalculations
Your third option is to work out an entry cost, i.e. how much it would take another start-up to reach your current trading levels.
That calculation should include everything you have invested in your business to reach your current position, including:
- Start-up costs
- Assets
- Product development
- Marketing
- Staff training
Your entry cost is another ballpark figure, but it isn’t always a simple task since you may have contributed a substantial amount of time that’s tough to quantify.
Choosingtherightwaytovalueyourbusiness
An aspect we haven’t yet covered is goodwill. This element is perhaps the most subjective.
Goodwill means the assets your business holds that you can’t easily measure:
- Reputation
- Brand awareness
- Intellectual property rights
- Commercial expertise
A broker will rarely value two businesses with identical profit the same since an appraisal will consider the power of the brand and how that affects the amount a buyer would pay for the company.
While you can’t buy or sell goodwill, it’s a crucial part of your business since this proportion of the company value could be considerable.
If you need a quick method to estimate a business price, the above methods can provide a simple solution. If you’re still unsure, it’s best to check outlegal help for startupbusinessesor well-established companies.
Should you be looking at any form of a company sale or new investment, it’s essential to consult an experienced valuation professional to ensure you arrive at a figure that represents the true worth of your business – including those assets that you can’t put a price on.
