Sam Watkins

Biography

Sam is a trainee solicitor in the restructuring and insolvency team. 

Sam currently assists the team in both contentious and personal insolvency. He works with insolvency practitioners, directors, creditors and individuals on a range of personal and corporate insolvency proceedings. Drawing on experience from previous seats, Sam supports fee earners on high value matters, including claims relating to transactions at an undervalue, preferences, and the recovery of sums from directors arising from misfeasance and wrongful trading

Sam joined Ashfords as a paralegal in the employment team, where he also spent the first seat of his training contract. During this time, he gained experience in both contentious and non-contentious employment law matters, assisting both claimants and respondents in bringing and defending claims in the Employment Tribunal. Sam worked with a variety of clients, ranging from individuals to large companies and franchises.

Sam spent his second seat in the planning and infrastructure consenting team, where he assisted the team on a variety of transactions including the preparation of s106 agreements, deeds of variations and deeds of discharge. Sam also assisted on contentious judicial review matters as well as large national energy infrastructure projects.

Sam spent his third seat in the commercial litigation team, acting for Claimants and Defendants in a wide range of commercial disputes, with a particular focus on debt recovery and data protection claims, including assisting a large franchisee client with Subject Access Requests (SARs). This was a split seat with the Restructuring and Insolvency team, where he currently sits.

Prior to joining Ashfords, Sam obtained a LLB Law degree from the University of the West of England (UWE), and later obtained his LPC with LLM from the University of Law. 

During this time, Sam also gained two years’ experience working as a property disputes paralegal at an international law firm.