Consulting firms advising on telecoms, digital infrastructure, technology, data and AI often need robust legal analysis to sit alongside their strategic, economic or technical work. Bratby Law provides specialist legal consultant support, helping them deliver integrated, high-quality outputs to their own clients.

We work with strategy, regulatory, economic and technical consultancies that advise governments, regulators, development agencies, investors and operators. Our role is to supply focused English-law and UK regulatory input, and where required to draft primary and secondary legislation, regulatory instruments and licences, in a way that aligns with your methodology, timetable and client relationship.

Legal input for strategic and regulatory consultancies

We are instructed by consultancies that:

• Provide strategic or regulatory advice on telecoms, digital markets, data and AI.
• Lead multi-disciplinary projects for governments, regulators, development banks or private investors.
• Need specialist legal analysis to complement economic modelling, technical work or policy design.
• Require legal review or sign-off on reports, recommendations and draft instruments before they go to the client.

We operate entirely in the background if required, with your consultancy retaining the primary client relationship. Our advice is concise, technically rigorous and written in a style that integrates easily into your deliverables.

Where our consultant support adds value

Sector-specific legal and regulatory analysis

We provide clear, pragmatic analysis of telecoms, digital and data regulation to underpin your strategic or economic work. This includes licensing and authorisation regimes, spectrum frameworks, numbering, interconnection, wholesale access, consumer protection, security and resilience, online safety and data protection. Our input helps ensure that recommendations are not only economically sound and technically feasible but also legally deliverable.

Drafting laws, regulations and licences

For projects in developing and transitional markets, we frequently support consultants by drafting or reviewing:

• Telecoms and digital communications laws and amendments.
• Secondary regulations, codes, guidelines and regulatory decisions.
• Licensing frameworks and individual licences or authorisations.
• Market access, infrastructure sharing and spectrum use conditions.

We can work from policy principles developed by your team, turning them into legally coherent and implementable instruments that reflect international good practice and local context.

Spectrum auctions and allocation frameworks

We assist consultancies advising on spectrum policy and auction design by:

• Reviewing and drafting auction regulations, information memoranda and bidder documentation.
• Advising on legal aspects of award procedures, qualification criteria and spectrum caps.
• Ensuring that auction and assignment frameworks are consistent with overarching legislation, competition rules and existing licence conditions.

Our aim is to support you in designing spectrum awards that are robust, transparent and defensible.

Legal review of reports and deliverables

We provide legal review and quality assurance on draft reports, market studies, impact assessments and policy papers before they are shared with your client. This can include checking consistency with applicable law, identifying areas where legal feasibility needs to be flagged, and suggesting refinements to recommendations or drafting to reduce legal risk.

An extension of your project team

All work is led by Rob Bratby, bringing more than three decades’ experience in telecoms, digital and data regulation, including time in a national regulator, in-house and private practice. We can:

• Join internal project discussions as your legal specialist.
• Participate in client workshops and presentations, either visibly as legal co-counsel or in the background.
• Provide rapid written advice and drafting to fit tight project timetables.

Engagements can be structured on a project, phase or work-package basis, with clear scoping and predictable pricing.

How consultant support engagements work

When we provide consultant support, our aim is to strengthen your project team rather than compete with it. We agree at the outset how Bratby Law will be presented, where we will appear in front of the client and how our work will integrate with your methodology, style and deliverables.

A typical consultant support engagement will involve:

• an initial scoping discussion to identify where specialist legal and regulatory input is required and how it fits into your project plan
• clear allocation of roles between your team and Bratby Law, so that responsibilities for analysis, drafting and client communication are understood from the outset
• agreement on deliverables, formats and review processes, including how our advice will be incorporated into reports, models or policy papers
• timetables aligned with your milestones, recognising that consultant projects often operate to compressed deadlines
• predictable fee structures, usually on a project, phase or work-package basis, with hourly support where appropriate for ad hoc questions

Throughout, we treat your consultancy as the primary client. We are comfortable working entirely in the background, offering white-label legal content and advice where that best supports your client relationship.

Examples of consultant support engagements

• Legal and regulatory input into multi-country market reviews and competition assessments.
• Drafting a new telecoms law and associated regulations for a developing country as part of a wider sector-reform programme.
• Preparing spectrum auction regulations and bidder documentation to support an auction design project.
• Reviewing and refining consultancy reports for governments and regulators to ensure legal coherence and implementability.
• Providing English-law and UK regulatory analysis for global market studies or benchmarking exercises.
• Advising international consultancies on the legal and regulatory aspects of regional digital-infrastructure strategies and investment roadmaps.
• Providing ongoing consultant support to a global strategy firm on repeat telecoms and data-policy engagements, ensuring consistency of legal analysis across multiple projects.

International consultant support

Many consultant support engagements relate to multi-country projects or reforms in developing and transitional markets. Bratby Law brings experience of working across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific on assignments funded by governments, regulators and development-finance institutions.

On international projects we can:

• draw on international good practice in telecoms, digital infrastructure, data and AI regulation when drafting laws, regulations and licences
• provide English-law and UK regulatory analysis for global market studies, benchmarking exercises and policy comparisons
• work alongside local counsel where country-specific legal advice is required, helping to brief them and integrate their input into your deliverables
• support engagement with regional bodies and donors by explaining how proposed legal and regulatory frameworks align with recognised international standards

This international consultant support allows your team to offer legally robust, globally informed recommendations while maintaining a single, coherent set of outputs for your end-client.

Why consultancies choose Bratby Law

• Specialist legal expertise in telecoms, digital infrastructure, data and AI regulation that complements economic and technical advisory work.
• Consultancy-friendly approach, with advice and drafting tailored to integrate into your outputs and methodologies.
• Discreet support, respecting your client relationships and branding arrangements.
• International experience across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, including work on development-finance projects.
• Clear, practical advice focused on what is legally achievable, not abstract theory.

Get in touch

If you are a consultancy seeking specialist legal support for telecoms, technology, digital or data projects, we can help strengthen your proposals, deliverables and client outcomes.

Bratby Law provides consultant support that ensures your recommendations are not only strategic and technically sound but also legally robust and implementable.