Andrew Thornton

Erskine Chambers

Erskine Chambers’ Andrew Thornton has given advice on more than 40 public takeovers over the course of 2019; while at the same time his entrepreneurial character led him to oversee ventures that turned his knowledge of the law into profitable businesses.

Last year, he launched Sparqa Legal, a digital lawyer platform that helps businesses by providing templates for employment contracts, commercial agreements and trademark applications. Having worked on the platform for three years, he recently signed partnerships with Starling Bank and Revolut, allowing hundreds of thousands of small business customers access to templates through the app.

It is not his first foray into the start-up world, having launched legal content service FromCounsel.com in 2016. Four years on, the company is on track to gross £3m, counting among its clients the whole magic circle.

These launches have not taken him away from his legal duties. In recent months, he advised on takeovers of publicly listed companies, including the £2.6bn takeover of satellite operator Inmarsat by a newly formed private equity consortium, and the acquisition of Merlin Entertainments, which owns Madame Tussauds and Legoland, by another consortium that dished out £4.77bn.