Benjamin James
Partner & Compliance Officer
An outcome-focused, practical and pragmatic commercially minded solicitor, Benjamin is experienced in working in England and internationally on all aspects of commercial, IT, IP, charity and privacy matters. Before joining McCarthy Denning, Benjamin was a partner at both Bircham Dyson Bell and another high-profile London law firm.
What we say about Benjamin
Benjamin has a detailed knowledge of complex issues and explains matters in an easy and understandable way. He strives to understand the underlying operations which are taking place and gives pragmatic solutions orientated advice.
As a commercially trained solicitor, Benjamin works across all sectors, but has a particular focus on charities and professional services. He specialises in complex contracts, but also advises on charity mergers and business transfers. He has an extensive advisory practice in relation to all aspects of commerce, intellectual property, data protection and ethics.
Benjamin advises on all areas of law affecting charities, including governance, intellectual property, fundraising and all types of contracts. Whilst he advises all types of charities, he works extensively with charities working with children, the arts, heritage and medical research.
Benjamin manages many complex domestic and international trade mark portfolios for charities, businesses and individuals. He also acts for international business undertaking activities in the UK. Along with assisting clients to register complex trade marks he has a particular interest in assisting clients which hope to register descriptive or generic names as trade marks.
Licensing all types of intellectual property is also an area in which Benjamin has a great deal of experience, this ranges from the licensing of concepts through to international patent licensing as well as the licensing of copyright and trade marks throughout the world in multiple jurisdictions.
The management of estates holding the copyright of authors and artists is another complex area where Benjamin provides advice and assistance to the executors and management teams.
Benjamin advises on copyright, database rights, designs and strategic IP issues. He has recently negotiated and drafted an exploitation agreement for privately funded university research and is often involved with licensing and assignment agreements.
Benjamin advises on all aspects of data protection, freedom of information, privacy and information management issues. He has a particular interest in protecting business and charities from being forced to disclose confidential information, including counselling notes, by the courts in relation to third party witness summons.
Benjamin has drafted many complex data protection policies for clients ranging from rail companies to banks, statutory regulators to small businesses and charities to the police. He has also worked in Tribunals on both data and freedom of information cases.
Benjamin advises on many types of commercial and IT contracts; these range from App development and licensing agreements to the implementation of practice management systems for professional firms. He advises a number of IT and security companies on their standard agreements.
He also works on a whole range of commercial contracts relating to sale of goods and the supply of services, whether in person, using the Internet or by means of distance selling.
Highlights
Benjamin has been closely involved with the formation of human tissue banks for research purposes. He has been the lead solicitor on the formation of a number of the largest UK tissue banks and continues to work on their development and maintenance. This includes the formation of the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund Pancreas Tissue Bank, a breast cancer tissue bank and a brain bank. All of these matters have involved complex advice in relation to governance, intellectual property, international transfers, personal data and operational contracts.
He has recently advised on the strategy to merge ten charities working in similar areas into two charities with an international reach. He has also recently designed an ethical review process for a zoo to make sure that the decisions that are made in respect of the animals meet the highest possible standards.
Benjamin is a trustee of an adoption agency, a fostering agency, an international aid agency and a zoo.