Lawyer · Founder · Philanthropist
I'm Joe Burns. I practise commercial law, build businesses and sit on boards. The part of the week I'd defend hardest is the part I'm not paid for: schools, mental health services, and the people quietly holding them together.
Burns & Co. Group
Essex · London
I trained as a commercial lawyer and have spent my career in property, corporate transactions and business law. I built Burns & Co. to make expert advice genuinely accessible — clear fees, plain English, my personal attention.
Beyond the law the group spans strategic advisory, early-stage investment and community impact, because building something worthwhile has to mean more than commercial success. I sit on a school board, I work with mental health charities, and the majority of our consulting and legal work for registered charities is given away free of charge.
Founded
Burns & Co. Group
Governor
Cedar Hall School
Prior
Adviser to government
Charitable work is not an afterthought or a PR exercise. It is a core part of what Burns & Co. is, and of what I am.
I serve as a governor of Cedar Hall, a school for children with moderate learning difficulties. The same governance work the group does commercially — budgets, policy, holding leadership to account — applied where every decision has a child attached to it.
One of the defining challenges of our time. We partner with charities working on awareness, early intervention and long-term support — bringing governance, strategy and fundraising expertise to organisations doing vital work.
Community interest companies, ninety-year-old sports clubs, food initiatives and organisations supporting young people into work — often the organisations with the least time to spare for the paperwork that unlocks their funding.
The majority of our consulting and legal work for registered charities is provided free of charge. If you run a charity, ask us first.
The philanthropic storyI am a lawyer, not a manager who employs lawyers — so I still take the calls, read the documents and visit the clients, whether that's a boardroom in the City or a kitchen table on a farm in the Essex marshes.
Keynotes, lectures, panels and after-dinner speeches — delivered by someone who has done the work, made the mistakes and kept the receipts. Talks are prepared for the specific audience, never delivered from a standard deck.
Charitable & school events accommodated
Applications are read by me, not a committee, and you'll get a straight answer either way. Mental health, education and local community provision come first.