Amanda French to head up retail and leisure at Bristol law firm Clarke Willmott

By Peter Davison

28 June 2023

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Amanda French

Experienced commercial property lawyer Amanda French has been appointed head of the retail and leisure sector team at Clarke Willmott LLP – just a year after joining the national law firm.

Amanda, who joined Clarke Willmott as a partner in its Bristol office last year, specialises in portfolio management and store development programmes for multi-national retail businesses and is also experienced in managing investment portfolios.

Prior to joining Clarke Willmott, she was a senior associate at Top 20 law firm Womble Bond Dickinson and an associate director at Davitt Jones Bould, one of the largest specialist real estate firms in the UK.

Amanda has served as head of property legal for two multinational retailers (River Island and Farrow & Ball) where she provided commercial strategic advice on global property portfolio issues and transactions, whilst reducing risk, providing business cost savings and managing internal and external legal teams.

She has also held commercial roles within business and has experience of sitting on a number of executive boards.

“Clarke Willmott is steeped in experience in the retail and leisure sector having acted for brands such as Lidl and Burger King for over 15 years,” said Amanda.

“I am delighted and honoured to be given this opportunity to co-ordinate and promote such a fantastic team of specialists across the firm, which provides a wealth of expertise and knowledge to the retail and leisure market.

“It is a challenging time, but one of the reasons I am so passionate about the retail and leisure sector is that it is extremely resilient and is constantly evolving to meet rapidly changing consumer and regulatory demands.”

In the last 12 months Clarke Willmott has advised household brands including Fat Face, Turtle Bay, Lidl and Moto on a wide range of cases from property transactions to intellectual property.

Its corporate team has advised on a number of corporate takeovers and refinancing of holiday parks and hotels with a combined value in excess of £40 million.

The firm also advises retailers and leisure operators on HR and regulatory issues, supply agreements, intellectual property rights and strategies, and on all their real estate and construction requirements.

By Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country.

An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts.

Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.