Tina Morris leads our education team and project manages the academy conversion process, bringing significant experience with both single and multi-academy trusts.

Her specialisms include advising community, foundation, faith and PFI schools through the conversion process. In addition, Tina advises multi academy trusts on acquiring existing academies through re-brokerage arrangements, as well as advising academies who are themselves being transferred to a multi academy trust.

Tina also has broad experience across commercial, litigation, employment, education, property and local government law, including data protection and freedom of information. She provides day to day legal support to academy trusts and independent schools, many of whom subscribe to our Just Teach package. This includes providing advice on governance, company secretarial, freedom of information, data protection and public procurement.

Tina has been recognised by Business Today as a Top 10 influential UK education lawyer, shaping school policies and practices (2023).

Work highlights include:

• Advising on the conversion of a single academy trust to establish a new multi-academy trust and the simultaneous conversions of two primary schools and a secondary foundation school within the Kirklees area as well as the transfer of a further single academy trust to join the multi-academy trust. The secondary foundation school had been part of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and therefore advised on the PFI documentation that the client needed to enter into with Kirklees Council and the Department for Education.
• Working with a local secondary school on its conversion and the establishment of a multi-academy trust when the incumbent legal advisers were unresponsive to correspondence and the proposed conversion date was in jeopardy. Tina advised on the establishment of the new multi-academy trust and the simultaneous conversion of the secondary school. The secondary school had been constructed as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme (BSF) and advised on the BSF documentation that the client needed to enter into with the Department for Education.
• Tina has also been named in Business Today’s top 10 most influential UK Educational Lawyers, recognised for her work across communities, foundations and faith schools regarding conversions and acquisitions.