Two new faces are to join our specialist team of commercial lawyers

Jennifer Grabowski joins the team from Osborne Clarke, one of Europe’s most dynamic and respected law firms.

She studied law at the University of Cambridge before completing the Legal Practice Course with a distinction at Nottingham Law School.

She trained at international law firm White & Case with training seats in energy, infrastructure and project finance, corporate and dispute resolution departments before spending six months in the firm’s Singapore office working in a variety of areas including financing, debt restructuring, outsourcing and commercial litigation.

She then became an Associate Lawyer in the Corporate Department before taking up a role of Senior Solicitor in the Corporate department at Osborne Clarke. She was promoted to Associate in January 2009.

Her areas of practice have included mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, UK private equity/venture capital, European venture capital, corporate finance and general corporate advice.

Jennifer has advised on corporate and private cross-border mergers and acquisitions, reorganisations, private equity-backed acquisitions and disposals, management buy-outs and JVs. She has represented sellers and acquirers, private equity investors, management and high net worth individuals and has advised issuers and shareholders on admissions to trading on AIM.

She will move to Lancaster from Oxfordshire to take up her new appointment. Jennifer’s husband is to join the Mathematics Department at Lancaster University and we shall welcome the couple to Lancaster in September.

Former Bentham Grammar School pupil Kate Mallaband is a history graduate of St Andrew’s University. She converted her qualification to English Law at the College of Law in York to fulfill her lifelong ambition.

She trained with Gordons in Leeds where she built her substantial commercial property experience in the four years since qualifying.

Kate has dealt with an extremely wide range of commercial property matters whilst developing specialist skills and expertise for retailer clients.

She has worked as part of a specialist team providing a dedicated legal service to retailers and dealing particularly with acquisitions and disposals and ongoing management of high street, retail park, shopping centre and retail warehouse properties and portfolios.

She is an expert in all aspects of landlord and tenant agreements and property management, corporate property negotiations, disposals and share sales and investigating, reporting on and negotiating large scale existing commercial, proposed development and former industrial sites.

Kate, who also joins the team in September, is a member of the Mallaband family from Burton in Lonsdale, the proprietors of the well known Lancaster business, Mallaband Factors.