Andrew Kirke

Andrew Kirke Funding Accelerator Mentor

Bio

Andrew is a Partner in the Commercial team at Tughans law firm, and works with clients across a full range of commercial contract matters, with a particular focus on energy and technology law. Andrew is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. He has also worked on his own start-up in the past, and works closely with start-ups and scale-ups across the UK and Ireland, with a particular focus on clean-tech and technology.  Tughans is one of Northern Ireland's largest commercial law firms, and provides legal advice to businesses throughout the UK and Ireland, including numerous Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies.

Focus of 1-2-1 Session

A 1-2-1 session with Andrew provides an opportunity for start-ups with specific legal queries to gain clarity on the assistance they need. Andrew's key practice areas are:

  • commercial contracts (including licensing agreements, EULAs, reseller agreements, consultancy contracts and similar contracts)
  • intellectual property (including trademarking and commercialisation of patents or registered designs, although he is not a technically qualified patent attorney).

To fully benefit from legal mentoring from Andrew, it is helpful if you are ready to discuss:

  • the issue you face
  • what you think you  need
  • and a realism about what can be covered in a one hour session.

A session together can then be used to clarify where your startup needs to seek legal advice (and where it doesn’t), to explore likely budget requirements for more formal advice and understand the steps you can take yourself to protect your business in its infancy.

When booking a session with Andrew, please provide a brief description of your business and the particular legal areas that you are interested in considering.