Chambers Review
Provided by Chambers
Chancery: Traditional - London (Bar)
What the Team is Known For
Serle Court has an impressive reputation in the market for its handling of high-value chancery work. Multiple barristers at the chambers have continued to be involved in the largest ever Bermudian trust dispute, Wong v Grand View PTC & Ors, which relates to five Bermudian purpose trusts containing assets worth over USD15 billion dollars. "Serle Court will always be my first chambers of choice for complex matters," remarks an interviewee, adding: "There is nothing you can throw at them that they can't find a way through." Another source appreciates the approach taken by barristers throughout the set: "I have always found their case analysis, commercial judgement and responsiveness to be excellent."
Strengths
The clerks are professional and easy to work with.
The clerks are very proactive and are always very keen to find a solution to whatever problem you have. They've been absolutely spot on - they know their team well and what they're trying to achieve.
Nicholas Hockney and Daniel Wheeler lead the clerking team.
Notable practitioners
She is not only technically outstanding but she is absolutely unflappable. Constance provides robust, well-balanced advice while never failing to recognise the human side of the work she does.
She has the best judgement for any barrister that I have worked with. Her assessment of a case is never wrong. She is also brilliant in court, very good to deal with and super approachable.
Constance is a brilliant advocate and is the archetypal iron fist in a velvet glove. She is an absolute star.
He's unrivalled in this area in his knowledge of onshore trust litigation.
What stands out about him is his towering intellect and brilliant advocacy. He's a devastatingly effective advocate. He's across the detail in a way that takes your breath away.
He quickly gets to the nub of the most technical of issues while ensuring that he communicates them in a way that is easily digestible. He's empathetic with clients and brilliant to work with.
Elizabeth Jones is simply outstanding. She grasps the detail and presents it with simplicity. She is an outstanding advocate and likewise her written work is masterful.
She's a great team player. Everyone has deep respect for her. In court, I've never seen a judge so attentive to counsel. Judges just trust her and can tell she's thought about every point.
Elizabeth is a force of nature. She is exceptional at managing tricky matters. She is a very reassuring member of the team and she inspires confidence not only in lawyers but also in lay clients.
Emma is able to produce top-quality work in an extraordinarily quick timeframe. Her drafting is excellent, and she has a very keen eye for detail without losing sight of the bigger picture.
Emma is one of our go-to juniors. She's incredibly hard-working and really at the top of her profession. She's excellent for written work and oral advocacy.
Emma is brilliant with clients, extremely clever and responsive and a hard worker - an unbeatable combination.
He is much in demand by solicitors and brings a very unique lateral approach to problem solving in these cases. He thinks independently and creatively and applies his technical capabilities very well.
Richard is very commercial, very approachable and incredibly responsive. His advocacy is fantastic. He's very calm, doesn't get rattled, and is very specific and very clever.
Richard is incredibly practical and strategic in his thinking and adept at readjusting with speed and accuracy when matters take an unexpected course. He's accessible, proactive and client-friendly.
Giles is brilliant. He's incredibly talented, works hard and is incredibly bright and engaging. His strategic insight and input are always valued and clients love him.
Giles is a joy to work with. He is a hugely talented advocate and fiercely intelligent. Clients and solicitors love him, and he also commands the ear of the court.
He is has a great reputation and rightly so. He is very detail-focused and does not get lost in the weeds. He is great in court and an all-rounder.
He is completely unflappable. I do not know any barrister as responsive as him. He is someone you can always rely on, he works incredibly hard and he is such a nice person as well.
He's incredibly organised, very bright and very hard-working. He's all over the detail and is incredibly sought after.
James is an exceptional junior. He's extremely personable, always on hand, bright and hard-working. James is a pleasure to work with.
Thomas is an excellent junior with good insight and commercial acumen. He's a strong draftsperson.
He offers calm, pragmatic advice even in the midst of extreme pressure. He is incredibly hard-working, constantly making our lives easier and producing very high-quality advice.
Thomas is a joy to work with. You can always be confident that no stone is left unturned and that all eventualities, even in the most high-pressure and complex of cases, have been considered.
Harry is astoundingly effective. He is very sharp on his feet and a tremendous asset in the mediation room or at court.
He is a rising star. He has excellent judgement, performs really well in court and is very good at analysing his client's case. He has huge amounts of patience, which is rare.
I really enjoy working with Harry. His input is considered, thoughtful and astute. He fitted seamlessly into an established team.
John is an absolute pleasure to work with. He's thorough, considered and extremely well regarded by clients.
John's advice is clear, commercial and concise. His calm demeanour puts clients at ease and he is generally a pleasure to work with.
John is a quality lawyer, good on his feet, with a much appreciated client-facing demeanour.
Jonathan Harries KC specialises in cross-border disputes and offshore litigation. He is also a part-time professor at King's College London and a senior research fellow at Oxford.
Jonathan knows the field like the back of his hands.
He is the person to go to when any complex issue crops up. Despite being such a massive brain, he is extremely approachable, he is great at presenting, and his written and oral advocacy is amazing.
Jonathan is simply excellent on complicated cross-border matters.
He is able to get on top of huge volumes of work and detail quickly and distil his advice in a way that is clear and persuasive while also being sensitive to client concerns and demands.
He is an outstanding senior junior who is very user-friendly, very efficient, and the quality of his written work is very high.
He's very good at reading what it is that clients want. His drafting and advocacy are fantastic. He's brilliant on his feet.
Stephanie Thompson is a sought-after junior who has made an impression in the market, particularly for her work in offshore and cross-border trusts litigation.
Stephanie is personable, always on hand and provides extremely clear advice.
Stephanie is a very smart barrister who handled all questions with good strategy.
I think she might be one of the brightest people I've ever met. She has an extraordinary ability to take on masses of information. She has a very understated manner that belies a fierce intellect.
Gregor Hogan has expertise both domestically and offshore. He is an experienced junior, acting unled on high-value trust and estates disputes.
He is highly intelligent and is an excellent advocate as well. He can navigate things in a nuanced way such that he is very good with clients.
He has great drafting, and is on top of the detail and a really good advocate.
Gregor was properly knowledgeable about trusts law all over the globe. You can put any question to him and he'd have an answer.
Zahler is very helpful and considered and a pleasure to work with.
Zahler is an extremely capable junior with an excellent written product.
Jamie Randall is instructed on a wide range of trust and estate disputes. He has expertise acting on high-value Inheritance Act claims and tax-related disputes.
He is an excellent draftsman and has some very good work on at the moment. He is responsive, intelligent, and incredibly calm and decisive.
Jamie is a talented operator with great intellect and good emotional intelligence, and he is calm under pressure.
He has absolutely enormous talent. He is clearly very detail-oriented, very considered and somebody that will go very, very far.
Sparsh Garg recently joined Serle Court and has significant expertise in trust and estate disputes in England as well as various offshore jurisdictions.
Sparsh is very committed, very diligent, and delightful to deal with. His written submissions are always at the highest standard, and his advocacy has also been of an exceptionally high standard.
He is a very solid junior, who is able to grapple with complex issues of law and facts, and provide clear advice. He is also very responsive to emails and just a pleasure to work with.
Sparsh is very knowledgeable but also able to distil that knowledge into practical advice, which was easy to understand and implement.