Vanessa Barnett

Information about the specialist

Practice Areas

Vanessa helps clients who are using technology and data to innovate or disrupt established ways of doing things. Vanessa focusses almost exclusively on advising VC-backed, high-growth businesses on their scale-up journey on a general counsel-like basis, particularly those who are data-rich and using software as a service/platform/marketplace business models.

Vanessa is a technology and data lawyer who has been at the forefront of advising clients using internet-enabled business models for over 20 years. Over the last five years she has focussed on the two biggest growth areas in the digital economy: data platforms and gig/talent platforms.

Vanessa has particular expertise in applying traditional regulatory requirements to new online business models (e.g. data protection, employment, tax, sector-specific regulations). She advises on all aspects of these business models, including structure, contracts, intellectual property and data protection, and holds specialist data protection certifications CIPP/E & CIPM.

She is often embedded in client product teams to ensure compliance by design, and also advises on legal/compliance product strategy, design and user experience, having been embedded for a year in the UK’s first law-tech start-up.

Having registered the company that became Ocado as a trainee, and deciding she wanted to be an ‘internet lawyer’, her career began with advising all of the original big players in the UK (Tesco.com, Amazon, Google, Apple). Her career has mapped business use of internet technology over time: technology development and services, website design and build, e-commerce, mobile, apps, digital media, social media, big data and gig/talent economy.

Vanessa has frequently been singled out by clients for her dedicated client service and practical approach.

In her spare time, Vanessa is the Chair of the Open Knowledge Foundation, who are pioneers in openness and data literacy, including developing the Open Data Commons licences.