Darbys is a new and exciting one man band legal practice set up by Charles Darby and operating from Great Easton, a Leicestershire village in the unspoilt Welland Valley.
Charles is a well known and leading figure in the Leicester and Leicestershire, indeed East Midlands, legal community. Hailing originally from Birmingham he qualified with Edge & Ellison there in 1986 and worked in their Commercial Litigation and Insolvency departments. He moved over to Leicester in 1990 when Edge & Ellison opened up in the city to head up Edges’ presence in those spaces, and was a leading part of the establishment of Edge & Ellison as a leading commercial law firm in Leicester during the 1990s.
He left Edge & Ellison in 1998 to join Freeths who were just setting up an office in Leicester and was an important part of the development of Freeths in Leicester into one of the leading commercial law firms in Leicester. He left there in 2020 to set up Darbys as a boutique Commercial,Litigation and Insolvency law practice operating without the overheads of a large law firm.
Experience
In a long and distinguished career there are not many areas of commercial legal practice in which Charles has not been involved. Highlights are:
Insolvency work
Charles has been involved in all aspects of insolvency work, whether for administrators, liquidators and trustees in bankruptcy or creditors. Notable cases are:
- The bankruptcy of Arthur Oakes which lasted for 18 years and involved 2 High Court decisions, and one appeal to the Court of Appeal, as well as execution of 2 search and seize orders and exercise of practically every anti-avoidance weapon in a trustee in bankruptcy’s arsenal.
- Husky Group Limited, a successful challenge to an assignment of trade marks as a transaction defrauding creditors, and the first reported decision on obtaining additional payments for beating an offer to settle.
Numerous minority shareholder unfair prejudice petitions
and applications to rectify share registers as a result of unlawful or irregular share transfers.
Defending guarantors
against claims by creditors.
General commercial litigation
including professional negligence claims and partnership disputes.
Most of all, on the spot commercial advice
in evolving difficult and challenging situations.
The most satisfying experiences in his legal career, which do not happen week in and out, have been:
- Acting for clients who have been to other lawyers and told that they have no case, telling them that that is not correct and then delivering on that case.
- Finding a solution which has not occurred to anyone before. Often that is little more than a case of spotting the obvious.
Nobody in their right mind wants to go to court if they can avoid it, and he has always had that at the front of his mind in acting for clients and trying to find solutions to their problems.
Services
Lockdown has shown that law firms do not need all the accoutrements of expensive offices and accessories to deliver a top quality legal service; not much more is required than wifi, a laptop and a phone. That is what Darbys will provide, at a considerably lower cost than traditional law firms. If you are interested in discovering more, call Charles Darby on 01536 771760 or 07778 470026, or email him on charles@darbysge.co.uk.