Chancery: Traditional - London (Bar)
Band 1
What the Team is Known For
Serle Court has an impressive reputation in the market for its handling of high-value chancery work. “Serle Court are excellent across all levels of experience and they work well together,” remarks an interviewee. Another source agrees: “Serle Court has an impressively deep roster across all levels of call.” Practice directors Nicholas Hockney and Daniel Wheeler lead the clerking team.
Strengths
The clerking team at Serle Court are responsive as well as flexible on timing when you need them to be.
Serle Court is excellent across all levels of experience, and the team work well together with excellent clerking support.
There is very good clerking at Serle Court. The clerking team really understand the practice and when talking to a solicitor they know who to offer in terms of barristers.
Notable practitioners
Constance McDonnell KC is highly respected in the traditional chancery practice for her handling of the most high-profile matters. She focuses on probate and contentious trusts, and also handles the administration of estates.
Constance is a fabulous silk and is a particularly good trial barrister.
Constance McDonnell handles clients very well and quickly earns their trust and respect. She's plucky and brave, which is good; some barristers are very cautious. She is very commercial and on top of all of the law.
Dakis Hagen KC is an exceptionally well-respected silk who is regularly instructed in the largest and most complex matters, particularly those with international or matrimonial finance aspects.
Dakis Hagen is one of the chancery Bar's greatest minds.
Dakis is a superb advocate and strategist who has a formidable intellect, persuasive advocacy and really good judgement.
Dakis is absolutely brilliant – creative, clever and a very persuasive advocate. He is passionate and enthusiastic, researches very deeply, and sees angles others don't because he's amazingly well read.
Dakis is very user-friendly, extremely clever and good on his feet.
Elizabeth Jones KC is a distinguished silk whose traditional chancery practice includes a substantial amount of international work. Due to her experience in commercial chancery, she is highly sought after for trust matters with commercial aspects.
Elizabeth is able to absorb vast amounts of detail and come up with an original strategy.
Elizabeth is brilliant with clients. She manages expectations well, but also does everything to achieve her objectives.
Elizabeth has admirable forensic and advocacy skills, and is a formidable leader. She is a pleasure to work with.
Elizabeth Jones is a superb analyst of cases. She is always absolutely spot-on in her advice.
Emma Hargreaves is a renowned junior whose respected chancery practice includes cases relating to trusts, wills and estates.
Emma is highly respected; she's instructed by everyone, really. If you think about who the top firms are for private client, they will have either made an enquiry to instruct her or will have instructed her.
Emma is so fast, clever and commercial.
Giles Richardson KC is an exceptionally well-respected barrister who is frequently trusted with complex multi-jurisdictional matters. He is also noted for his experience in matrimonial finance and other matters falling in the crossover between family law and traditional chancery.
Giles is excellent at the intersection between chancery and commercial work. Every solicitor wants to consult him.
Richard Wilson KC has a particularly strong advisory practice. He is often instructed in complex trust cases and is also noted for his handling of offshore and other overseas matters.
Richard Wilson is brilliant on his feet, absolutely superb.
He's very much at the top for trust litigation, onshore or offshore. He's very good on the big domestic succession cases. He is in a lot of demand and for good reason, I'd say. He's at the top of his game.
Thomas Fletcher is noted for his handling of a wide variety of traditional chancery matters, and has a particular depth of expertise in offshore and cross-border trusts matters.
Thomas Fletcher is an incredibly bright lawyer, very technically sharp and very strategically astute. He's a real asset. He's technically extraordinary and strategically superbly astute.
Thomas is a really good senior junior. He has a very strategic outlook and is really knowledgeable on the case law side of things, always looking to see how the law has developed as part of a litigation strategy. A very good draftsman for pleadings or letters, timely at producing them to reflect what the instructing solicitor is looking to achieve, and he works well as part of a counsel team.
Adil Mohamedbhai is a leading chancery junior with strong experience in trust and estate litigation for high net worth and ultra high net worth clients.
Adil's an absolute brainbox. We send him our trickiest chancery questions and he makes himself available to give very considered, well-thought-out advice. He is an exceptional junior.
Adil is a strong advocate with impeccable knowledge of procedure and an ability to write readily understandable submissions on very complicated trust and chancery matters.
Adil Mohamedbhai is a sensational junior. He is extremely responsive and very hard-working, as well as being very pragmatic and commercially user-friendly.
Adil is exceptionally talented and brilliant, with a photographic memory and an extraordinary ability to analyse complex legal issues. He has an extraordinary ability to handle complex material.
Harry Martin is a rising star who is building a highly regarded traditional chancery practice. He regularly handles wills and trusts, and is also taking on art and cultural property matters.
Harry Martin is quite simply exceptional: written, oral advocacy, and with clients, he's the complete package. He's very good on his feet, very clear in his writing, and clients love him.
Harry is great, he's so clean in his thinking and approach. He provides fast turnaround. He's quietly confident and thorough: nothing throws him, which is very reassuring.
Jonathan Adkin KC has expertise both domestically and offshore, particularly in commercial and traditional chancery crossover matters.
Jonathan is fantastic. He is astonishingly well prepared and very smart.
Jonathan Adkin knows how to get to the heart of the issue very quickly. He is very sharp and knows the answer pretty quickly as well.
Jonathan Adkin is a heavy-hitting super-silk at the top of his game who commands the room and the court as well as the papers. Impressive.
Oliver Jones represents clients in contentious probate, trust and estate administration matters.
Oliver Jones is engaging and responsive with clients, and his experience in trust cases is palpable. His written work is always persuasive, and he has an extremely strong work ethic.
Oliver is a pleasure to work with and a brainbox. He works hard and is accessible.
Oliver is a go-to junior in complex multi-jurisdictional trust disputes. He masters lots of information with relative ease, and wears his intellect well with no ego at all.
Gregor Hogan has expertise both domestically and offshore. He is an experienced junior, acting unled in high-value trusts and estates disputes.
Gregor is technically very good and has very good knowledge, not just on contentious trusts and probate but family work as well. When you have a dispute touching many bases, he's great.
Gregor is a really strong, confident advocate. He's good at rolling his sleeves up and is also really diligent and super hard-working. He's also really bright.
Gregor Hogan is very client-friendly. He is easy to talk to and happy to get involved with the detail. He goes the extra mile to find the right legal argument and goes into the thorny and difficult problems and questions.
Gregor picks up facts very quickly and retains them when you come back months later.
John Machell KC is a respected silk with a broad chancery practice, who often appears in trusts and estates cases as well as more commercial matters. He is also frequently sought after for offshore matters, particularly those concerning trusts in the Cayman Islands.
John is incredibly good. He is responsive and sensible.
John Machell is all over the detail, very user-friendly, and very helpful when it comes to guiding strategy and case direction. He rolls up his sleeves and gets stuck in.
Jonathan Harris 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 Harris is all over the details of private international law.
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 Thompson has deep reserves and a sharp mind.
Stephanie is a superbly good junior who is destined for great things. She is very responsive and she produces very good written work.
Timothy Collingwood KC is a respected chancery silk who represents high and ultra high net worth clients in litigation regarding trusts and estates.
Timothy is shrewd, considered, careful and still great fun to work with.
Timothy is thoughtful, very precise and responsive.
Timothy Collingwood is excellent – very responsive, and happy to roll his sleeves up and be part of a team. He is also able to effectively lead on strategy and is hugely knowledgeable about trust law matters. He gives pragmatic advice.
Zahler Bryan is a strong junior who advises on complex trusts matters, including international trust disputes. She also acts in commercial disputes.
Zahler is excellent. Her written work is excellent and she is great with clients.
Zahler Bryan is highly skilled and can get instructing solicitors out of sticky situations with excellent advice and assistance delivered with poise.
Zahler has admirable forensic and advocacy skills. She is a formidable leader.
Amy Proferes represents wealthy clients in chancery proceedings relating to trusts and estates disputes.
Amy is remarkably versatile across company law and trust and estate disputes, and she delivers at a pace that consistently impresses. She is genuinely happy to engage with complex issues at short notice, and when she gives advice, she backs it: no hedging, no equivocation. As an advocate, she has a sharp eye for the points that matter and pursues them with real skill. She picks up on things others miss, and she does it under pressure without breaking stride. She is the kind of counsel you want on the end of the phone when something urgent lands on your desk.
Amy is amazing at absorbing a lot of information in one go and recognising where the focus needs to be on an issue. She is very thorough, has an intricate knowledge of the law, and is also very approachable.
Amy Proferes is super prepared for everything and she is unflappable.
Jamie Randall is instructed in a wide range of trust and estate disputes. He has expertise in acting in high-value Inheritance Act claims and tax-related disputes.
Jamie Randall is very hands-on and happy to help out. He produces extremely high-quality drafting.
Jamie deals with matters very efficiently, cuts to the chase, and is able to look at matters creatively. He reframes what seems to be a tricky position and can come up with an answer to a tricky problem.
Sparsh Garg has significant expertise in trusts and estate disputes, both domestically and in various offshore jurisdictions.
Sparsh Garg clearly really loves his work. He is very productive, willing to get stuck in, and produces high-quality work.
George Vare is a respected chancery barrister who assists high and ultra high net worth clients in the litigation of trusts and estates disputes.
George Vare is a very impressive operator. He shows 100% dedication to the client’s cause, is mature beyond his years, and is highly responsive.
George is outstanding and incredibly easy to deal with, incredible with clients, with great strategic thinking and attention to detail.
George is able to get to the nub of the problem quickly and provide clear and concise advice to clients, both in writing and in conference. He is very approachable and excellent as part of any litigation team.
James Weale KC focuses his practice on contentious matters and frequently acts in the High Court. He is also experienced in cross-border matters.
James is the barrister you always want on your team. He works harder than any barrister I've encountered. He's a fierce advocate bringing an extraordinary level of energy and commitment to his work and a laser-focused strategic approach to everything that he does.
James is very quick and strategic. He knows the law and in particular knows the intricacies of the Civil Procedure Rules. Sometimes experienced barristers need to go back to the CPR provisions, but James has a lot of clever procedural points at his fingertips.
James's preparation was exemplary, and his cross-examination was razor-sharp. He was incredibly easy to work with and always made time to deal with the case.
