Nicola James
Partner

Nicola has experience advising a broad range of clients including those in the entertainment, healthcare, retail and financial sectors. 

Noteable work includes advising:

• Universal Music Group (UMG) on the separation of the Parlophone Label Group from EMI Records and its subsequent sale to Warner Music Group for GBP 487 million;
• Kantar (a Bain Capital portfolio company) on its multi-jurisdictional carve out and disposal of Kantar Health to Cerner corporation;
• Marlin Equity Partners on its acquisition of the global Arcserve business from CA Inc, transferring employees in 28 jurisdictions; and
• Emerson Electric Co on a number of its carve out transactions (both sale and acquisition side) including the purchase of the Tools and Test business from Textron Inc and Intelligent Platforms business from General Electric Company.

For her work with UMG and Marlin, Nicola has been part of the teams winning Commercial Team of the Year 2013 and 2015 at the British Legal Awards and Lawyer Awards respectively.

Nicola is recognised as a key lawyer in Legal 500 (2023) for specialising in employment aspects of international transactions. Clients say the M&A Support Team are: "a (sadly) rare combination of highly technically proficient, business savvy, attuned to actual market practice, service oriented and responsive, practical problem solvers, and genuinely nice people whom it is unfailingly a pleasure to deal with."

Nicola previously worked at international law firms Baker McKenzie and King & Wood Mallesons. She has also worked in-house as senior employment counsel for NBCUniversal covering UK, EMEA and APAC.