Quality IP: Michael Sandys

The big news today for Quality Solicitors is their "Legal Access Points" in W.H. Smiths where one can apparently get a will, fix an appointment, request a compensation assessment or a conveyancing quote. However, that is not all they do.

According to their website they can also help with:

• Buying or selling a business
• Advice on a contract or franchise agreement
• Protecting a business name or product or idea
• Starting a business
• Employment Law advice - from employment contracts to resolving employment disputes with employees
• Resolving business disputes - be they with customers, suppliers or partners/directors
• Growing your business - advice on the right ownership/structure for your particular needs
• Commercial property advice whether you are buying, selling or taking a lease of premises or transferring an existing lease to someone else.

In Liverpool at least they can deliver on those expectations because Quality Solicitors Jackson have just taken on my old friend, Michael Sandys, as head of commercial law. I have known Michael ever since he was at Cobbetts and he has instructed me in some of my biggest cases including Excavating & Contracting v Windmill Construction where Roger Wyand QC and I had an excellent win in before Judge Maddocks QC in a difficult passing off case against Leo Price QC and Adrian Speck as well as Microsoft Corp. v Ling and Others [2006] EWHC 1610 and Twentieth Century Fox Ltd and Others v Newzbin Ltd. [2010] EWHC 608 where we ended up on the losing case despite giving the case our all.

Michael is not just a good litigator, he also knows his onions in licensing, agency, defamation and other commercial stuff. He supported the Liverpool Inventors Club from its start and I have just got an email from him about Liverpool Design week which suggests that he has something to do with that too.