About Us

John Gaunt & Partners was set up as a specialist licensing practice in 1995 by Partners John Gaunt and Katharine Redford. The intervening period has seen the practice grow significantly in terms of its size, range of clients and areas of expertise.

Those clients include national operators of pubs and bars, restaurants, hotels and developers and retailers of all sizes within the off-trade including many of the major leisure operators by whom we are often nationally retained, and to whom we provide a discreet professional service.

In terms of gambling, we represent bookmakers and betting offices and produce a quarterly legal update for the industry.

We are also retained by leading commercial legal practices to advise on licensing due diligence in appropriate matters.

Licensing Services are broken down into management services, bespoke services, regulatory services and training.

Our areas of specialisation include alcohol and entertainment licensing, Gambling, Regulatory and Due Diligence and training.

Senior Partner, John Gaunt says: Our philosophy is to offer a service that is the industry leading, bringing added value to our clients with a common sense, sound commercial approach to the advice which we give.

We work closely with our clients and we are generally regarded by them as an integral team player. Added value is brought to our relationships in many ways. These include complimentary attendance at operational team meetings, regular feedback meetings thereby ensuring that the service we provide meets the service requirements of the client and by the offering of free e-mail updates on matters of topical interest. We also offer a 24 hour helpline manned by one of the Partners to ensure immediate access to specialist and experienced advice when it may be most needed.

We believe an active involvement in industry organisations including, for example, Business in Sport and Leisure of which we are a sponsor. We are active members of the Institute of Licensing. We were the lead professional consultant to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills on the introduction of electronic licence applications.

John Gaunt & Partners are also main sponsors of Best Bar None, Sheffield 2009 / 2010.

We know that our fee rates are checked in the market place by our major clients on a regular basis and are always found to be cost effective and are more than competitive.

Consistently recommended by the independent guides to the legal profession, the firm's position at the forefront of licensing has been repeatedly acknowledged: