About
I am a lawyer by training and a General Counsel by experience. But I have spent most of my career working inside businesses, alongside the people running them.
That has shaped how I work. Understand what the business is trying to achieve. Work out what really matters. Form a view. And then help get it done.
How I work
Spotting the legal problem is often the easy part. The harder — and more useful — part is understanding what the business is actually trying to achieve and finding a workable way forward.
Sometimes that means changing the route, the structure or even the original idea. What matters is that Legal helps find the way forward.
Judgement
You cannot give useful advice in isolation. You need to understand the business, the people, the objective and the pressures around the decision.
That is why I have always valued being close to the business — not only as its General Counsel, but as a sounding board when the question is broader, messier or simply difficult.
Sometimes what you need most is not another legal opinion. You need someone experienced who can form a view and turn it into a clear, workable solution.
Why Dandelion
I have spent much of my career as a General Counsel and senior legal leader. But the job was rarely only about Legal. I worked as part of management teams, alongside executives and boards, and increasingly as a sounding board on decisions that did not arrive neatly labelled “legal”.
That broader role has always been the part I valued most.
Over time, I became increasingly convinced that this kind of experience is valuable much earlier — and in more situations — than the traditional General Counsel model allows. It helps put the right foundations in place, anticipate what comes next and make choices that work now without getting in the way of what comes later.
A company should not have to hire a senior GC five days a week to benefit from that experience. Sometimes it needs ongoing legal leadership. Sometimes a senior sounding board. And sometimes there is simply a problem, contract or decision that needs sorting.
Dandelion exists to make that experience available in the shape the business actually needs.
There is another reason.
This is also the work I enjoy most.
Getting close to a business. Understanding how it works and where it wants to go. Helping solve the difficult things. Putting structure in place where it helps — and leaving it out where it does not. Being someone people trust to call when something needs thinking through or simply needs getting done.
After more than 30 years, I do not need Legal to be bigger. I want it to be useful.
A little more personally
I take the work seriously, but not always myself. I like direct conversations, quick humour and working relationships where people can say what they actually think. Trust matters. So does loyalty. And I have always preferred common sense over ceremony.
I take ownership. I stay close to the people involved, see things through and get on with what needs to be done without creating unnecessary process around it.
That combination — judgement, ownership, trust and a practical way of working — is a large part of what I wanted Dandelion to be.
Let's talk
Tell me what is going on, what you are trying to achieve or what needs sorting. We will work out from there whether — and how — I can help.
