Carole Hailey

  • Head of Technology and Commercial Law
  • LLB. (Hons) in Law (2:1), University of Exeter
  • Ex-Linklaters and CMG (now LogicaCMG)
  • CEDR Accredited Mediator

Carole is a founding partner of Waterfront Solicitors LLP and her areas of expertise cover all aspects of the provision of commercial software and IT services. She works extensively with supply-side organisations who license software products, provide IT solutions and consultancy services and undertake large-scale development projects in the UK and overseas. Carole's experience with strategic commercial issues equips her to provide focused, relevant legal advice that aids her clients to achieve their business goals and minimise the risks of doing so.

Carole has significant expertise in the government procurement sector and has been involved in a large number of OJEU procurement projects from RFQ/ITT stage through to signature of contract.

Recently, Carole has advised both a government department and an international bank on multi-million pound procurement projects.

Carole is a mediator, accredited by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution.

Rachel Bunn

  • Head of Intellectual Property
  • Diploma in Intellectual Property Law, University of Bristol
  • BSc. (Hons) in Chemistry (1st class), University of Bristol
  • Ex-Linklaters and Bird & Bird

Rachel is experienced in all aspects of acquiring, protecting, litigating and exploiting intellectual property rights. She has acted for a wide diversity of clients ranging from household names, to sole traders and has advised extensively in relation to IPR infringement & validity; freedom to operate; IPR litigation & settlements; IP restructurings, sales, licences and collaborative arrangements. Rachel advises clients in all industry sectors but has particular expertise in the Bio-Pharma (patents) and IT fields (copyright). Recently Rachel has acted for Nokia in one of the first cases under the new Patent Office Opinion regime. Rachel is an active speaker and prepares and presents bespoke client training courses on all aspects of intellectual property law. Before joining the Waterfront Partnership, Rachel worked at Bird & Bird and Linklaters. Reported cases on which Rachel has worked during her professional career include:

  • Pho (UK) Limited v Mr Toan Ly (passing off, trade mark infringement)
  • Cunningham v Nokia (patent opinion)
  • Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment v Noel (copyright infringement)
  • Synthon v SmithKline Beecham (patent revocation)
  • Synthon v Merck (declaration of non-(patent) infringement)
  • Lundbeck v Lagap (patent infringement)
  • Palmaz v Boston Scientific (patent infringement)
  • Kenburn Waste Management v Bergmann (patent threats)
  • Société des Produits Nestlé SA v Mars Inc. (passing off)
  • Mattel v Simba Toys (passing off, design right infringement)
  • One-2-One v Rok Communications (copyright & database right infringement)

Matthew Harris

  • MA Jurisprudence (2:1), University of Oxford
  • Ex-Herbert Smith and Norton Rose

Matthew is experienced in all aspects of intellectual property, information technology, internet law, data privacy and freedom of information work.  Matthew initially trained as a general commercial and intellectual property litigator and although he has extensive experience of both contentious and non-contentious IP and IT work, his practice retains a contentious focus. Matthew became a partner in the IP and IT department of Herbert Smith in 2000 and joined Norton Rose in 2003 where he subsequently became the head of Intellectual Property and Information Technology dispute resolution.   He joined Waterfront Solicitors in December 2008.  The wide range of work that he has undertaken to date has included acting for the Law Society in High Court data protection litigation, acting for Capital One in a multi-million pound IT litigation, advising Huawei in various patent related matters and successfully conducting the defence of abuse of dominance litigation in relation to trade effluent charges for the Kelda Group. He was noted for his strong agrochemical patent practice in the 2007 edition of Legal 500. 

Matthew is a recognised expert in domain name law and practice, has been appointed by WIPO, Nominet and the Czech Arbitration Court to decide domain name disputes and he also sits on the Czech Arbitration Court domain name advisory board.    He is a visiting lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich in Switzerland and is the UK contributor to, and a general editor of, the International Trademark Association’s Annual International Review of Trademark Jurisprudence and Volume II of its annual Trademark Law Handbook.  Matthew also sits on INTA’s International Amicus Committee. 

Alison Berryman

  • Head of Digital Media and Entertainment
  • LLB. (Hons) in Law (2:2), University of North London
  • Ex-Universal Music Publishing and Macrovision

Prior to joining Waterfront Solicitors as a trainee, Alison had accumulated nearly 4 years of contracts experience, first at Universal Music Publishing and later at Macrovision (a NASDAQ listed silicon valley technology company).  Since qualification she has worked with clients of all sizes - from individual singer/songwriters requiring advice on the terms of contracts offered to them, to medium sized businesses requiring software licences, to overseas national governments requiring advice on European Data Protection Legislation.  Alison was promoted to partner in December 2008.

Alison specialises in drafting and negotiating a very broad variety of commercial contracts, particularly for clients in the entertainment, technology, software and e-commerce sectors.  She also advises clients on data protection and e-commerce regulations.

Alison has undertaken two secondments as part of the Waterfront Solicitors' "Virtual In-House Lawyer" scheme.  The experience gained during these secondments, together with her work in-house prior to Waterfront Solicitors, has led Alison to take a very pragmatic and commercial approach to most legal problems.  Many clients have commented on how useful this approach is in enabling them to make informed decisions quickly, so they can get back to the ‘real work’.