Sophie Burton-Jones

Partner

What can I do for you

Sophie is a technology and data privacy lawyer in Mills & Reeve's top ranked commercial team.

If you are either a company selling your digital products or services, or a customer buying technology, whatever your size or scale, Sophie can help.

She can support you on a wide range of legal matters, including:
• IT contracts, including software, SaaS, cloud and AI licensing, development and reseller agreements
• Online contracting, including website terms and privacy policies
• IT infrastructure and hosting
• Major IT procurements and outsourcing
• UK GDPR compliance
• Data processing and data sharing agreements
• International data transfers

Sophie also offers a one-stop outsourced GC service for start-ups and scale-ups not yet ready to take on an in-house lawyer.

Sophie works predominantly within the technology, health and government sectors. She is a leading member of our health tech, women’s health (FemTech) and NHS digital transformation teams.

What do others say

Sophie is proud to have been ranked as a 'Next Generation Lawyer' for IT law in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners for a number of years. Feedback from clients describes her as 'approachable and engaging and takes a clear pragmatic approach'.

Supporting your ambitions

Sophie has helped over 30 NHS organisations buy and implement electronic patient record systems. These are critical to the organisation's and the Government’s plans to transform, modernise and digitise healthcare services nationwide. This typically involves support in developing the procurement documentation and draft contract, clarifications and evaluation during the bid process, and leading the contract finalisation process with the winning bidder. Recent clients include Royal Papworth Hospital, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and the Department of Health and Social Care Northern Ireland.

Sophie has also supported Speechmatics, a leading automated speech recognition technology provider on a range of contractual, data and policy matters over a number of years as it has scaled-up its business. She helped develop and update their standard terms to meet the company's needs as it brings new products and services to market. Additionally, Sophie advised on data collection and use queries, and negotiated agreements with key customers to ensure a balanced commercial and risk arrangement for both parties.

What else should you know?

Sophie leads our Inspiring Women in Tech group and also co-hosts our Talking Digital Health podcast.

What our clients say about us

“I think Mills & Reeve are a wonderful firm. The support they have provided to us in a really difficult area has been brilliant, collaborative and commercially minded. The team were absolutely wonderful and a joy to work with. Amazing advice and support and a real collaborative effort with us. I can't thank them enough for getting us through some really tough times and doing so with an amazing can-do attitude.”

“They are friendly, fast, always available and always on top of the game. I tend to judge my legal team against the other side's legal team and never doubt Mills & Reeve is the better of the two.”

“All interactions have been very clear. Responses to questions have always been very swift and unambiguous. Our company, and my family, have used various services in Mills & Reeve with the same level of satisfaction.”

“I value the fact that Mills & Reeve are recognised as a good place to work in the UK Best Companies survey. This aligns with the values of our business and means that Mills & Reeve can share what is required to achieve this status with our business.”

As many clients will testify, too many lawyers deliver the required legal expertise but fail to deliver an outstanding client experience. Which is why we always listen to our clients and constantly ask ourselves what we can do to deliver the results you expect.

You expect a close and attentive working relationship, with a lawyer that is responsive and available when you need them. You also want clear, pragmatic and commercial advice tailored to your needs, and transparency and certainty on costs. We completely agree. That’s why every day, through our culture and approach we are committed to delivering the exceptional results and service our clients expect of us.

Insights from Sophie

20 Dec 2017

Change is coming to public sector outsourcing contracts