BWB - Bates Wells Braithwaite

Bates Wells Braithwaite is a full service commercial City law firm working with a wide range of clients, large and small, across a variety of sectors – from established businesses, charities and social enterprises to innovative start-ups and high-profile individuals.

We stand out as a law firm – combining practical, commercial legal expertise with the deep understanding of the third sector that comes from working with more charities and social enterprises than any other UK firm. We are not only recognised as the leading charity law firm in the UK; we are also ranked in the major UK legal directories for our excellence across many of our specialist practice areas.

The firm has grown consistently over the years both organically and through lateral hires. In particular, our corporate and commercial team has expanded significantly over the last few years and we still have the largest team of charity and social enterprise lawyers.

With some 190 staff and 30 partners, we are large enough to provide a complete range of commercial legal services yet small enough to be able to provide a personal service to every client. We are rated by Chambers UK as one of the best law firms in the UK for our client service, which we take extremely seriously. 

BWB was founded in 1970 by Andrew Phillips (Lord Phillips of Sudbury) and has always been based in London, with clients across the UK and internationally. We are co-founders of a well-established international network of trusted law firms - Parlex - giving our clients easy access to consistently high quality commercial legal services across Europe and further afield