The Business Clinic

About us

Welcome to UEA Business Clinic, part of UEA Law Clinic.

We provide free advice to social enterprises, spin-outs and SMEs in Norfolk and Suffolk. We bring together experts from within UEA, from law firm Birketts LLP, Howes Pervical LLP, Triple Bottom Line Accounting, and business support organisation Menta. We also work with FUSE, an organisation that supports social enterprises.

Once per month (to start with) we offer advice sessions where SME owners and managers can come to the UEA Law Clinic for some individual help and advice on issues that are troubling them. Meetings are by appointment and last approximately 45 minutes each.

Our advisors can advise on a wide range of legal and practical issues affecting SMEs, drawing on our team's wide range of expertise.

As this is part of the UEA Law Clinic, students will be present at the meeting and help to run the service. This gives them valuable experience of real world business concerns and enables us to help more clients.

Your meeting will be free of charge. Some advisors may charge for undertaking further work if such work is agreed. However, they will discuss with you what your options are.

Applying to us

Our next clinics are on the afternoons of Wednesday 19 November or Wednesday 10 December.

The application form is here.

If we think we can help, we will arrange an appointment for you to see a solicitor from Birketts LLP or Howes Percival, or an advisor from Menta or an accountant from Triple Bottom Line Accounting, depending on which we think is most appropriate.

Your appointment will take place at UEA Law Clinic on the UEA Campus in Norwich (see Find Us) and will be free of charge. Exceptionally, we may agree to advise you on Teams. Please see our important Terms and Conditions including information about who is advising you.

All meetings will take place on a Wednesday. If you are not able to accommodate this timeslot, we are sorry but we are unable to help you. It is certainly possible that in due course we will expand our days but as we have just launched, and the law clinic is busy with many other services, this isn't possible at the moment.

"We know there is a real need for free and low-cost help for small businesses and start-ups in East Anglia. We hope to fill that gap, providing advice and support on practical and legal issues."

Polly MorganLaw Clinic Director

The advice we can offer

Image of the business clinic advisors sitting around a table

We can offer help and advice on most issues facing businesses. Here is an idea of the sort of things we can help with:

Setting up a company or business - things to think about
Terms and conditions
Problems with a supplier or another business
Business survival or restructuring
Expansion or business direction/growth/products/services
Grants and funding
Operations, quality, customer satisfaction, costs, service delivery issues
Business integration (merger and acquisition implementation) issues
Resolving disputes in the workplace
Intellectual property
Employment law
Supply chain issues
Social media and marketing
Succession planning
Selling or acquiring a business or company
Governance issues
It's all getting on top of me
Debts of your business

You are welcome to complete the form if your issue is not covered here, and we will see if we can help.

If, however, you are seeking advice on how to recover money owed to you such as an unpaid client invoice, we are not able to assist unless it is a matter of how to revise your business model or terms and conditions to reduce the change of reoccurrence. If it is about recovering a debt, there is lots of helpful information about making a money claim (aka small claims court) on the government website. The process for seeking money through small claims court is specifically designed to be used by someone without legal representation.

Who's Who in the Business Clinic

Polly Morgan

Director, UEA Law Clinic

As Director of the UEA Law Clinic, Polly was the founder of the Business Clinic and has overall responsibility for it. She is an Associate Professor in the Law School and an experienced solicitor.

William Kemp

Associate, Birketts LLP

William is a solicitor and part of the Corporate team at Birketts LLP, the Business Clinic's law firm partner. He has a pragmatic and balanced approach, and enjoys working with a wide variety of businesses. He deals with a wide range of corporate matters, acting for a range of clients including SMEs and individuals. He advises on a range of corporate transactions, corporate recovery work, and franchising.

Alex Till

CEO, Menta

Alex is CEO of Menta, one of the Business Clinic's partner organisations. He has a passion for business and is inspired by meeting entrepreneurial and creative people. He is driven to build on Suffolk and Norfolk's success and national recognition as a thriving area to live and work. Alex is also chair of the National Enterprise Network which works alongside government and businesses to develop and support enterprise.

Sam Varney

Associate, Birketts LLP

Sam Varney is an Associate Solicitor in Birketts LLP’s Corporate Team and works closely with the Business Clinic to provide free legal advice to businesses and entrepreneurs. Sam supports clients at every stage of their journey—from helping start-ups with fundraising and structuring to guiding established companies through acquisitions and disposals. His goal is to make complex legal issues clear and manageable, so you can focus on growing your business with confidence.

Richard Newell

Director & Senior Accountant, Triple Bottom Line Accounting Limited

"I joined TBLA in 2023, bringing my financial experience in various sectors, including Healthcare, Media, Manufacturing, Waste Management and Recycling, and more recently, in multi-disciplinary Estate Agencies. I specialise in management accounting, forecasting, and advising. At TBLA, I am becoming a sustainability accountant through my greenhouse gas accounting and net zero advisory involvement.

I am a fellow member of the AAT and hold an ACCA Advanced Diploma in Accounting & Business."

Thanks

We would like to thank the following for help with setting up this clinic:

Ian Callaghan, UEA's Chief Resource Officer for funding for our Gateway to Growth interns Marcus Stearn and Emma Bullen
Liz Davis-Smith, Business Development Manager at UEA
Leo Lonergan and Laura Green in UEA's IT department and Penelope James our data compliance specialist for help with technology and compliance
Dr Scott Summers, Lecturer in Business Law, for help with our triage process
Selina Watts, Associate Professor of Law, for help with student promotion and recruitment
Menta for sourcing funding for us
Rashmi Dewan from UEA's development office for photographs