Who we are
Vanessa & Rebekah
Bonsai Law was built by lawyers who know what it feels like when business risk stops being abstract.
Vanessa Challess founded her first firm, Tiger Law, in 2017 after starting out on her own while pregnant with her third child and supporting her family as sole breadwinner. She built it through Brexit, Covid, the energy shock and the cost-of-living crisis, learning, sometimes the hard way, that the wrong hires, the wrong structure and the wrong systems can put enormous pressure on a business even when the work is strong.
Bonsai Law was founded in 2022 with a clearer idea of what a modern law firm should be: leaner, more deliberate, commercially realistic and built around what clients actually need when things get tested. When Tiger was lost in 2025, the business and team were transferred into Bonsai. Clients stayed, the work continued, and the firm carried on, stronger for what it had learned.
That continuity matters. Bonsai was not built in theory. It was built in the middle of real life, real pressure and real responsibility.
Alongside Vanessa is Rebekah Brake Manning, Vanessa's longstanding work wife and a deeply trusted residential property lawyer. Rebekah brings calm judgment, exceptional client care and years of experience helping people through high-stakes personal transactions. Together, they built Bonsai to be both commercially sharp and human: a law firm that understands deals, homes, disputes, pressure and what it takes to keep going.
Most lawyers draft for the day you sign. Bonsai drafts for everything that comes after.
The founders
Founder · SME Services
Vanessa leads Bonsai's SME services work, commercial contracts, corporate matters, disputes and intellectual property.
She advises founders and owner-managers directly and commercially, with a constant eye on downside, leverage and what happens after the deal is signed. Her work is especially valued by clients who want legal advice grounded in how businesses really operate.
Director · Residential Property
Rebekah leads residential property at Bonsai Law.
She helps clients move with confidence through purchases, sales and the practical issues that sit around them, bringing calm judgment, clear advice and exceptional client care when transactions feel personal, pressured or high-stakes.
Why “Bonsai”
A bonsai isn’t small by accident, it’s shaped, patiently, to grow strong in the conditions it’s actually in. That’s how we think about a business or a home: get the roots and the structure right today, and it stands up to whatever comes next.
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