Chambers Review
Provided by Chambers
Dispute Resolution: Commercial - UK
What the Team is Known For
A regular presence in the Commercial Court and Chancery Division, Serle Court is a set noted for its work on extremely high-value commercial disputes, particularly those involving civil fraud. Individuals at the set regularly guide clients through the most stressful and complex cases in the market, many of which are international in scope. Recent cases include: The Public Institution for Social Security v Al-Rajaan, a high-value fraud claim; and Commercial Bank of Kuwait v Butti, a fraud claim arising out of the collapse of NMC Healthcare. Its members also continue to play a role in the Diesel Emissions group litigation. A source commented that “Serle Court has serious talent throughout its ranks”.
Nicholas Hockney and Daniel Wheeler are the Practice Directors.
Strengths
The clerks led by Practice Directors Nick Hockney and Daniel Wheeler are excellent. They are always on hand to solve issues and ensure that work is delivered to clients on time.
Practice Manager Charlie Payne is professional and very easy to chat to. He's great at discussing the merits of counsel and different matters to be dealt with, whether concerning diaries or fees.
Deputy Practice Director Emma Quin is a superstar clerk. She is extremely thoughtful and bright.
Junior Practice Manager Felicity Wall stands out for her dedication and willingness to go above and beyond to achieve the best outcome for the client. She is a real asset to the set.
Notable practitioners
Highly experienced, responsive and able to deliver exceptional advice. He demonstrates a clear grasp of the legal issues and is also accessible to the client.
Liz Jones is truly outstanding. She is superb at strategy and tactics, and also has tremendous command of the detail in a case.
She is just amazing!
Philip is an extremely impressive performer. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge and grasp of commercial law, and is possessed of a razor-sharp intellect.
Philip is a skilful and forceful advocate, who is ferociously bright and very dependable. He is one of the top chancery KCs of his generation.
Philip is the barrister I call upon when the stakes are high. He provides ideal qualities: he's very strategic and collegiate in court, and also a street fighter when he needs to be.
Jonathan is brilliant. He is really good in court and gives really good advice.
James' oral advocacy combines outstanding analytical skills, in-depth knowledge of the facts and the law, forensic cross-examination skills and an intuitive understanding of what matters.
James is very responsive, smart, sensible and a pleasure to work with. He is also very good on his feet.
Extremely responsive and commercially minded, he has great judgement and balances the risks and benefits of a matter in a concise manner.
Lance brings a lot of commerciality to bear and is someone who actually makes a decision. He's great to work with.
Great for fact-heavy cases. He gets stuck in and is always reliable.
He is an effective advocate and a great cross-examiner.
Daniel is a master at distilling complex legal arguments and complex facts into easily digestible and highly persuasive skeleton arguments.
He is all over the detail and a clear lateral thinker.
Daniel is an oracle of all things shareholder dispute-related. He is a great intellect and a persuasive advocate.
His quality of written work is very high and he is a good advocate in fraudulent misrepresentation cases in particular.
Hugh is a very polished advocate, who reads the court brilliantly.
Justin is frankly superb – he is very effective.
He is collaborative and good at tackling difficult issues.
He is smooth and persuasive.
Extremely able and brilliant on his feet. He turns written work around very quickly, which is always a help when running matters.
Marc is a fantastic junior to have on a complex case. He is a very gifted technical lawyer, who works extremely hard.
Marc has a maths background and it really shows in the way he approaches problems – he is very logical.
Marc is a superb junior. Great to work with, he's astute and very responsive.
Paul is absolutely phenomenal and is someone to watch.
All over the details and very knowledgeable, he's well regarded by judges.
He is a very effective cross-examiner.
If you have a difficult case with novel issues or difficult questions, he is the barrister for you.
Simon is very mature and commercial in his approach.
Simon is a very responsive and shrewd senior junior. He offers sensible, strategic and commercial advice.
Zoe is super user-friendly, great on her feet and just a pleasure to work with.
Very sharp and at the forefront of using graph database technology to help advisors build well-reasoned conclusions supported by evidence and logic.
He is able to charm the judge and he brings real energy into court.
Matthew is very practical, user-friendly and open to dialogue with instructing solicitors and clients to discuss issues and set them out in an easily digestible way.
Matthew is a formidable opponent, who gives absolutely as good as he gets whilst also being a very smooth and polished advocate.
Matthew is really personable and clearly very engaged with the art of advocacy.