ABOUT INNOVATION LAW
Innovation Law is a family business.
Its co-directors are a couple, Sharon Zachariah (solicitor, front of house) and Stefan Stockman (support services, compliance).
OUR PURPOSE AND VISION
STRATEGIC LEGAL SOLUTIONS FOR GROWING BUSINESSES
We want to help businesses to collaborate more, make more money together and be happy!
We champion innovative businesses of all sorts, from start-ups with their first legal needs to mature businesses who need some additional support or training.
We help build and maintain long-term business relationships.
Strategic Legal Solutions
Empowering Clients
To Realise Success
Risk Mitigation
Identifying Risks and
Building Contingency
Compliance Excellence
Guidance For Negotiating
The Legal Terrain
What We Do
Sharon (a commercial contracts lawyer) advises on commercial law (advising on contracts and how to comply with the law), GDPR and AI compliance, share and asset purchase agreements and related due diligence, employment contracts, settlement agreements, restrictive covenants, T&Cs for SaaS/apps, online marketplaces. In short, we provide general counsel services and ad hoc work that a business would ask of their legal back office, including providing legal advice for start-ups.
What does all this cost?
We sell our brain power and our knowledge 😊. We know which button to press and how best to solve the problem. We’re like plumbers. We’ll offer a fixed cost where we know what you want us to do. We can also work on a weekly or monthly basis if you are happy to commit to us for a certain length of time.💍Sharon is convinced that hourly billing (where she has to write down in great detail each activity and the time she has spent on it) is shortening both her and your life, so she avoids it like the plague! But she hasn’t come up with a magic alternative: when she has no idea how much work is involved, she does sometimes fall back on this.
What about other areas of law?
We have a gorgeous network of collaborators who will work with you directly or as our sub-contractors. Just ask us and we will discuss the best fit for you.
Why Choose Innovation Law
Choose us because we’re good, we’re nice and we care about your business!
Sharon has both in-house and private practice experience, so she has an excellent understanding of business priorities while having proven and recognised legal expertise.
MEET THE TEAM
Sharon Zachariah
Legal Consultant and Founder of Innovation Law
You can speak with Sharon - just schedule a free introductory call to discuss your requirements and get a quote
How does she do it, you ask?
Well, Sharon spent about 12 years working in-house at organisations like:
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The Institution of Engineering and Technology
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The Bank of New York Mellon
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SThree
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YouGov
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London South Bank University
(you get my drift).
Then she spent around 4 years as Head of Department (Commercial, Technology and Data Protection) at London law firms Waterfront Law and Laytons ETL.
She has frequently and successfully negotiated across the table from giants (yes, literally):
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Google
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Facebook
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Spotify
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Tesco
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Vodafone
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Gatwick
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Eurostar
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Deloitte
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PwC
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The UK government
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Amazon
(you get my drift).
She has always brought the deal home. She says, “Negotiating is more an art than a science”, and we’re running with that because she is the Big Cheese in our family.
“Bringing home the deal” to us means that your deal will reflect your must haves and protect your commercial and legal interests.
Qualifications
Sharon qualified as a solicitor in 2016 while at the Institution of Engineering (the IET) and Technology. She had been working as a paralegal from 2009 and as a legal advisor from 2010. From 2013 to 2016 she was also contracts manager and risk manager, and worked on the IET’s international expansion and collaborative ventures.
Sharon also has a Magister Artium (BA + MA) from the University of Mainz in Germany. A former singer and teacher, she is also a popular speaker at events.
Languages
Sharon speaks English, German, Bengali, Spanish, Hindi and Dutch (in that order of proficiency). She has done legal work in German, Spanish and Dutch although the latter was particularly challenging as it involved summarising Dutch statutes in English.
Stefan Stockman
Research, admin & compliance
Stefan was a conscientious, client-focussed IT professional for over 30 years, most recently in regulatory reporting at a City investment bank, working as programmer, designer and technical analyst on many projects over the years.
He has also spent a considerable amount of time researching people and places while pursuing his genealogy hobby, sharpening skills which he latterly employed as a locator of missing persons for a major humanitarian organisation.
Stef has a great mind for retaining facts, some of which may seem obscure. All this makes him an awesome paralegal, researcher and administrator at Innovation Law.