Karen Blakesley
Karen is a litigation and business solicitor with more than 20 years experience in private practice and five years in commerce and industry. She prides herself on cultivating long term partnerships with clients through getting to know their business and providing swift, practical and cost effective solutions.
Karen is a litigation and business solicitor with more than 20 years experience in private practice and five years in commerce and industry. She prides herself on cultivating long term partnerships with clients through getting to know their business and providing swift, practical and cost effective solutions.
Karen's aim is to operate as an outsourced legal department service for SMEs at a cost that is affordable and on terms tailored to each client’s exact requirements. She works to ensure legal risk is carefully considered and limited as far as possible in any given situation. That said, Karen is also happy to provide advice on an ad hoc basis, if more suited to clients’ circumstances.
Karen regularly provides advice on:
- contract and other commercial disputes
- resolving problems through alternative dispute resolution, without the need for costly court proceedings
- representing clients through court proceedings in County, High, Chancery and Administrative Courts
- commercial debt recovery and insolvency procedures
- reviewing and drafting a range of commercial contracts, terms of business, shareholders’ agreements, partnership agreements, contracts of service
- starting up a business
- advising directors, shareholders, employers and employees on their respective obligations
- employment advice, including drafting contracts and advising on procedures and best practice, bringing and defending claims
- managing creditors and cashflow
- managing supplier and other contractual relationships
After 2 years’ training with a busy high street practice in greater London, Karen moved to a Legal 500 firm to expand upon her company commercial experience and then spent four years working in commerce and industry. She then returned to a large high street practice where she spent almost 15 years, the majority of which were spent as partner and a senior member of the commercial and litigation department.
Karen holds a degree in Law with French and a diploma in French Legal Studies from Strasbourg University. Having also spent time living in Spain Karen has a good working knowledge of both French and Spanish. Karen also has experience of teaching English as a foreign language, both in the UK and abroad. She has enjoyed using her teaching skills when mentoring junior fee earners as well as providing training to clients on specific areas of law relevant to their business.
Practice areas
Testimonials
"I've worked with Cognitive law on a number of occasions, from drafting commercial contracts, debt collection and most recently with Karen Blakesley on drafting for an EMI scheme and some minor company secretarial matters.
As with all my experiences with Cognitive, Karen was responsive, commercial and very thorough. In fact, over the years I have helped numerous businesses implement an EMI scheme and I have to say Karen's documentation was by far the most comprehensive and robust. This gave my client enormous confidence, which was surpassed when the work came in exactly as quoted."
Stephen Perrin
Karen is thorough and professional. Dealt with our terms and worked with our team extremely well and I'd strongly recommend her services to anyone. Will make introductions wherever I can."
Citrus Ornge Media
"Karen has been absolutely fantastic. I asked Karen to create up to date terms of business and a contractor agreement ready for the launch of my new business. She turned these around quickly, efficiently and at a very reasonable price! I am super pleased with her work and will definitely be going back to Karen for all future legal support. I can't recommend her enough."
Becky Sharp - Secs On The Beach