Andrew has over 25 years experience of handling an interesting and wide ranging caseload including private company and business sales and purchases, MBOs and joint ventures and a very broad range of corporate and commercial advisory and contract work, spanning a wide range of industries.
Andrew provides Legal Services and Business Advice. See the A-Z of Business Sectors in which Andrew has worked.
As a result he has developed all round strengths and the confidence to take on most challenges. He can quickly identify commercial issues and priorities, gets to the root of complicated issues, and can suggest and implement pragmatic solutions to them. He is versatile and adaptable and can think on his feet. He is not afraid to give advice or make decisions based on available information.
Dealing with large multinationals right through to individual sole traders, he is experienced in dealing and negotiating with a broad range of people from different backgrounds with different cultures, perspectives, personalities, objectives and approaches.
Andrew can also help you find providers of Other Services via the Network of Independent Business Lawyers, which he founded.
Approach
Andrew prefers to work closely with you as his client.
This means he will have a better understanding of many aspects of your business:
- your company structure
- your objectives and strategies
- your business style and approach
- your business models
- risks, threats and opportunities, whether legal, commercial or regulatory
- your people
- people you deal with
- relevant legal issues
- your legal budget and priorities
It also means that he can get involved and add value at early decision making stages and early stages of transactions, helping you by anticipating and preventing problems and identifying opportunities.
He can put you and your deals on the right track. He can help agree and produce those heads of terms and memoranda of understanding which are regrettably all too often produced without consulting lawyers.
Andrew will look to identify and discuss the issues you face and what is important to you. He will then work with you to determine your priorities, outline the services you need and then agree specific tasks and timeframes to suit your needs and budget.
On any particular transaction, Andrew will look to work with you to:
- ascertain your objectives
- identify weaknesses and opportunities in any proposed deal or business model structure as presented
- find ways to create the right deal or business model structure to achieve your objectives
Philosophy
Business is about business relationships. Andrew’s preferred approach is to aim to understand and address where each different party is coming from and to conduct negotiations with courtesy and friendliness with a view to reaching a sustainable ‘win-win’ solution.
Biography
Andrew has been a qualified solicitor since 1987. He spent the first nine years of his career at a mid-sized City firm.
In 1994 he moved to BP Collins in Gerrards Cross, becoming a partner shortly after. Over the next decade he helped to transform BP Collins’ company commercial department into ‘one of the strongest company and commercial departments in the South-East outside London’ at the time (Source: The Legal 500).
In 2006 Andrew accepted a partnership at IBB in Uxbridge, joining as Head of Commercial. Andrew left IBB in 2008 to set up OnHand Counsel.
Andrew James conceived of and founded the Network of Independent Business Lawyers (‘NIBL’) in 2009.
Life outside the law
Although he is of course on hand (as it says on the tin) on a 24/7/52 basis with his legal practice, Andrew somehow finds time to follow other interests. These include: his family (a very nice one – wife, 3 kids, dog, cat, and others); squash (playing for three teams at Nuffield Health – one of the lower men’s teams, the middle aged men’s team and the old men’s team); cricket (playing for the Hertfordshire middle aged men’s 2nd XI, the St Albans Girls School (dad’s section) and the Flycatchers); real tennis (a cross between squash, tennis and quidditch) at Hatfield House; golf (Verulam Golf Club; the Duffers Golfing Association); PapiBatting (current world champion under the nom de guerre ‘slogger’); guitar (plucking badly); the ancient Japanese martial art of origami; puzzles and crosswords; friends (both of them); eating; drinking; reading; all the usual stuff..
