Chambers Review
Provided by Chambers
Dispute Resolution: Commercial - UK
What the Team is Known For
Essex Court Chambers is regularly involved in some of the most high-value domestic and international commercial disputes. Recent highlights include: Google LLC & Google Ireland Limited v NAO Tsargrad Media & others, a claim for anti-enforcement injunctions in relation to Russian judicial penalties said to exceed £1.85 octillion; Public Institution for Social Security v Al Wazzan & others; and Magomedov v TPG, Transneft, among numerous other high-profile cases. The set has a deep pool of experts capable of handling commercial cases arising from many different legal areas, such as banking, civil fraud, energy and shipping, to name but a few. An interviewee notes: “Essex Court Chambers is capable of handling the most complex and sophisticated matters at the highest levels."
Joe Ferrigno is the senior clerk.
Strengths
I have always found the clerks to be responsive and helpful.
Team leader Kevin Grubb is superb - he just really gets it. He is fantastic and will always help out.
Assistant team leader Samantha Wright is extremely responsive, on the ball and able to guide us to the right junior. She always finds the best fit for the case.
Senior clerk Joe Ferrigno and team leaders Katie Myles and Kevin Grubb are stellar.
Essex Court Chambers has strong clerks who are very open, commercial and always willing to have a sensible discussion about fees.
Notable practitioners
Joe Smouha is a strategic genius. He is who you want to run big ticket litigation, because he is so strong on strategy and he understands what judges want, so he can persuade them.
He is a top silk who is laser-focused on winning.
Joe Smouha is absolutely fantastic. He is an incredibly good advocate; he always sounds persuasive.
Joe is very industrious and committed. He also has a great reputation, which is a benefit before judges.
James is among the very best of the best. He has an outstanding knowledge of the facts and legal issues involved, and provides invaluable strategic input and exceptional client service.
James Willan is without a doubt the most intelligent person I've ever met. He is remarkable and also very accessible.
James is an exceptional lawyer who is very happy to work with everyone in the firm, from partner down to junior associate. He is exceptionally hard-working and produces things on time.
James is incredibly bright, very hard-working and nice to deal with.
His advocacy is irresistible. Judges find it hard to argue with anything he says because he presents everything in a logical and compelling way.
Nathan Pillow is a commercial, user-friendly, smooth advocate. He is also extremely diligent.
Nathan is absolutely fantastic on his feet and has judges eating out his hands.
Nathan is excellent at civil fraud and a strong advocate. He has a nice demeanour about him and he reads the court very well.
Nathan is very sharp and capable of leading big cases. He sees the big picture very quickly. His is a very easy advocacy style that appeals to judges.
Nathan led quite a big legal team, but he handled the case extremely well and presented the arguments clearly. He handled the choreography of that very well and fluently.
He has a very powerful courtroom presence. People remember him as he really commands the room.
He is probably the best person for injunctions. His biggest attribute is his brain; he is able to pull everything together clearly in his mind.
He is fabulously unpretentious and unfussy. The judiciary likes him as he delivers in a user-friendly way.
Paul is probably the leading KC for commercial fraud and complex matters at the Bar. He is very user-friendly and masterful at tactical considerations.
Paul Stanley is fantastic. He has a really first-rate intellect and is especially strong on the insurance side.
Paul Stanley is a seriously impressive barrister. He is very bright and extremely into the detail. He is one of the best.
Paul has a fantastic manner and is an extremely persuasive advocate. He is one of the brilliant legal brains at the Bar.
Tom Ford is a great junior, who outperforms silks in terms of advocacy. He is excellent on his feet and a good all rounder.
Tom Ford is extremely good as he is very sensible and strategic, and his advocacy is very polished. He's always very measured with the judge.
Tom Ford is very, very good with clients, and solicitors love him. He is a very strong advocate.
Graham has a big brain and can cut through complex, knotty issues of law. He is an intellectual heavyweight.
Graham Dunning is a streetfighter, whom it is good to have on your side in a scrap. He is very experienced and a tough opponent.
Graham has got such gravitas that when he gives submissions the whole room is listening. He is very persuasive, very user friendly and good to work with. He is someone the court really respects.
He is a formidable cross-examiner.
When it comes to anti-suit injunction, he is the king.
There's really nobody else who comes close to his expertise, knowledge and weight in the courtroom.
Watching him argue is a masterclass in how to be persuasive.
He knows the law back to front. In terms of giving strategically incisive advice, he's excellent.
Stephen is extremely hard-working and willing to get stuck into the detail of matters. He provides clear advice to the client about the uncertainties and risks involved in the case.
Anna is incredibly clever, so quick thinking and a great advocate. She grasps things in a nanosecond. She is also a very positive, upbeat person to work with.
Anna Dilnot is absolutely outstanding. She lasers in on the points that really matter.
Anna is very bright and straight to the point in her advocacy style.
James is very easy to deal with and a great written and oral advocate. He is a stylish advocate who is very good at building rapport with the court.
James takes complex issues and presents them in a clear, concise way which really puts the point across forcefully.
James Collins is very insightful on how to argue points.
He's a very smooth advocate, who's got the ability to appeal to the court.
James has the ability to crunch through a vast amount of financial documents. He is really quite a creative thinker as well.
Richard has a command and presence in the room because of who he is. He gives immense confidence to the client and is delightful to watch when he's making his incredibly powerful submissions.
An intelligent, dynamic advocate, who is also an extremely hard worker who really goes the extra mile for his clients.
Richard Millett is brilliant to work with.
His main strengths are his really excellent selection of important points that will matter to the judge. He identifies and focuses on important things so judge feels confident in him.
He is very collaborative, incredibly bright and very good on his feet in court.
David is very impressive and gets on top of the arguments quickly. He is very smart.
I highly recommend working with him on high-value, complex matters.
He is very good with clients and makes himself accessible.
Felix is a very calm and persuasive advocate who gets to the heart of the issue in dispute.
Felix Wardle is extremely clever and good with clients.
Felix Wardle is bright and easy to work with.
He was excellent and very straightforward. His work was meticulous, he cross-examined extremely well and the clients were very pleased.
Ruth is well liked in the market. She is good all-round.
Ruth is supremely clever. She is a very sophisticated advocate.
Judges like Ruth. She is no nonsense, writes commendably concise skeleton arguments and her oral advocacy is direct. She gets the point across with great charm.
Tim is a proper thinker. He is loved by the judiciary because he knows the issues inside-out. There is a lightness of touch to his courtroom demeanour.
Tim Akkouh is a very good advocate. He is good all-round.
Tim has the rare ability to go straight to the commercial heart of an issue when other barristers can get bogged down.
Tim is supremely intelligent and very good with clients. He is very user-friendly and a real joy to work with.
He is relentlessly calm, tremendously focused and someone who does it all with intellectually and with good humour. He winds the judge around his finger in a gentle manner.
Daniel makes it look so effortless. He has so much experience that he can expertly react to changes and unexpected twists in the courtroom.
Emily is determined and doesn't give an inch, but she's also sensible and takes good points. She argues her cases with a lot of confidence and vigour.
Emily Wood is a very charismatic advocate. She is very good in the restructuring space.
One of the thing that makes her stand out is the fact that she's a collaborative, team player, who is commercial and focused on clients' objectives.
Steven Berry is very good at analysing and distilling complex problems into key points. He is also a real team player.
A quality barrister, very generous with his time and his comments on the case, whose work product is superb.
Stuart is very hard-working but also very good to work with. He is always very well prepared, and is well versed at being in court. What also stands out is that he is conscientious in his client care.
Stuart's work on written submissions was superb, and he provided valuable legal and strategic input throughout. Also, his submissions were clear, well-structured and confidently delivered.
Andrew is bright, user-friendly and nice to pick the phone up to. He is nice to have on the file.
Andrew Legg has been remarkably approachable. He is a brilliant barrister.
Catherine Jung is a very strong junior. She is hard-working, client-friendly and very clever.
Catherine Jung was phenomenal. Her contribution was totally game-changing.
Cathy is great to work with. She is very clever, efficient and great at drafting. She also has an excellent sense of humour.
He is strong on arbitration but has a broad commercial practice too. He is really bright and has a way with the judges.
David is hard-working, easy to get on with and a good leader of a team. He has very good, broad commercial experience.
You get a lot of bang for your buck with David. He is a proper courtroom fighter.
David Peters is brilliant. The incredible thing about him is that he is incisive and always cuts through to the issue.
David is clearly an extremely bright, very capable lawyer. He is very energetic and has good judgment.
David is responsive, very intellectual, quick on his feet and someone who doesn't take prisoners. He thinks about things that others don't think about.
An extremely talented and smooth advocate.
An incredibly switched on and very impressive advocate, who is a very bright man.
He works incredibly hard and is great with clients.
A clinical but personable advocate, who always has the facts and materials at his fingertips, even when briefed at short notice. He commands respect in matters of the highest value.
James Sheehan is incredibly bright.
James is very creative, thoughtful and humble. He is very clear in his advice and just a very bright person.
Lots of barristers at his level are cautious, but he can be aggressive too, so he's a perfect balance. He is a very good advocate and good value as well.
He is extremely able and very hard-working.
Jeremy is top-notch and his cross-examination is very strong. He is going toe-to-toe with more senior KCs and doing a first-class job. He is client-focused and becomes an integral part of team.
He is very clear and focused. In terms of his advice, he is able to quickly get to the point, so there's not lots of faffing around or scratching of heads - he knows the answers.
Peter Webster is very practically minded and responsive. He thinks very carefully about things and provides balanced and well thought out advice.
Peter is fantastic as he never allows detail to escape his notice and approaches everything with great humour. He is so hard-working and always available.
He is simply superb. A fantastic lawyer who can distil the most complex legal issues into the most digestible format, Peter is one of the first picks on the counsel team list.
Wei Jian is a real rising star.
Wei Jian Chan is extremely responsive and hard-working.
His written advocacy is excellent. He sets out points in a punchy and succinct manner.
Wei Jian Chan is very clever, a very hard worker and a man who can pump out detailed and well thought out submissions quickly.
Freddie Onslow has a next level perception on what might come up as matters progress. She has excellent interpersonal skills as well, and she is commercial, pragmatic, user-friendly and accessible.
Freddie is a fantastic lawyer, and I am a huge fan of her. She is completely brilliant. In terms of her drafting, I have never seen such accurate drafts at first instance.
Freddie Onslow really is fantastic. She produces things of immense quality at lightning speed.
What you need in this practice is superb analytical rigour, and Freddie Onslow has that. She can produce work of the highest standard.
Freddie Popplewell is fabulous. I need to stop telling everyone how fabulous he is because he's too busy now. He is very good on his feet and is excellent each time he advocates.
Freddie Popplewell was even better than the KC on the other side. He has a very bright future.
Freddie Popplewell was top drawer in terms of his effort and what he brought to the case. He is notable for his brain power and all-round enthusiasm.
Anton was strong on advocacy and extremely effective. He was completely on top of the analysis and able to respond to the judge's questions. His written work was top notch too.
Anton Dudnikov KC is great. He is reliable, very hard-working, bright and a good advocate. What I love is he doesn't take on too much work, so that means you get high-quality work all the time.
Ciaran Keller is fantastic. He is very commercial in his approach, which is good for the clients.
Ciaran Keller is absolutely excellent. He has an ability to distil complex points in a straightforward way. His drafting skills particularly set him apart.
