Chancery: Traditional - London (Bar)
Band 1
What the Team is Known For
Wilberforce Chambers has an impressive group of barristers who handle complex disputes surrounding trusts and estates and demonstrate multi-jurisdictional knowledge of the law. The set is known among instructing solicitors for its "strength and depth in both more commercial and traditional chancery areas". Other sources highlight the set's bench, one noting that the set possesses "impressive bench depth at both KC and junior levels, all of whom are technically excellent but also commercial, approachable and collaborative."
Strengths
Wilberforce Chambers' clerks are very proactive and responsive. They always come back on queries with updates and are very detailed in their presentation.
The clerks at Wilberforce Chambers are highly responsive, commercial and personable.
Wilberforce Chambers contains an array of stars, both senior and junior.
They are a premier team for contentious trust, and the clerks are always responsive and practical.
Notable practitioners
Brian Green KC is a respected silk whose depth of experience in both contentious and non-contentious matters is widely recognised. He works on a range of challenging cases both domestically and offshore, and is a particular expert in trusts and pensions matters.
Brian is fantastic – he's speedy, does great quality work and is so responsive. He has encyclopaedic knowledge of trust law and offers fabulous advice.
Brian is a phenomenal lawyer and a brilliant advocate. He commands tremendous respect across the profession.
Brian Green is without a doubt one of the very best barristers at the chancery Bar. He is strategic, incisive, imaginative and creative.
Andrew Mold KC has a wide-ranging traditional chancery practice, with particular expertise in matters with matrimonial trust aspects to them. He also advises on complex fraud and pensions matters.
Andrew Mold is a really effective advocate with a very strong intellect. He is an incredibly calm and sensible litigator.
Andrew is a fantastic and unflappable advocate. He brings calm and confidence to the trickiest of cases and has a brilliant manner with clients.
Andrew is highly responsive, provides clear, concise and practical advice, and is a pleasure to work with. He is very down to earth and friendly.
Clare Stanley KC acts in a wide range of private client and trust litigation, regularly handling highly complex disputes. She is frequently instructed in high-value matters, both onshore and offshore.
Clare Stanley is formidable, a brilliant person to have on your side. She is really tough with opponents but has a softer side where needed with clients. She is very pragmatic in the background and very good at explaining difficulties to clients. She is really good and straight-talking.
Clare is brilliant and really good on her feet. Very robust and a pleasure to work with.
Clare is a highly experienced adviser and advocate with a flair for homing in on key points and reading the judge.
Fenner Moeran KC is particularly focused on high-value private client litigation and associated advice, acting in both court proceedings as well as various forms of ADR. He has a substantial advisory practice, both onshore and offshore.
Fenner Moeran is very user-friendly and really enthusiastic about cases. Clients love him and he presents complex legal issues in simple ways. He is persuasive and offers excellent advocacy.
Fenner is hugely well respected, immensely versatile and a brilliant advocate. He gets on well with clients so that there are high levels of trust and confidence in him.
Gilead Cooper KC is an eminent silk whose respected chancery practice is focused on contentious property and trusts. He attracts a wealth of praise for his advocacy.
Gilead has experience and intellectual rigour. He is a very innovative thinker and an extremely persuasive advocate.
Gilead Cooper is fun to work with, especially in stressful situations. He has a highly imaginative approach to problem-solving. He sees things in ways others won't and has a searing intellect that goes with it.
Gilead Cooper is super, off-the-charts smart. He's also very commercial and practical.
Jonathan Hilliard KC has a broad traditional chancery practice that takes in a wide array of trusts matters and a substantial amount of advisory work. He is widely respected for the depth of his technical knowledge. Hilliard has built a formidable practice focusing on trusts, fraud and pensions cases.
Jonathan has a brain the size of a planet. He's incredibly hard-working, and extremely proactive. He covers all bases and leaves no stone unturned.
Jonathan is an excellent silk, and if you are a trustee facing a complicated and difficult situation, there is nobody better to have in your corner to spot all the angles and help you navigate a path forward. His advice is comprehensive but clear, and despite having a very busy calendar, he seems to always find the time needed to help out. He is also a pleasure to instruct.
Jonathan is the most detail-oriented KC I have ever worked with; he is absolutely across every single bit of every paper on the case. He has a brain that digests material in a terrifyingly efficient way, and he can put you through his paces. He has high standards, but it means not a single stone goes unturned, which is a rare skill.
Michael Ashdown combines expertise in private client trusts law with extensive tax knowledge to handle disputes centred on wills, trusts and estates.
Michael is a very impressive and responsive senior junior, always delivering incredibly high-quality written advice.
Michael's thoroughness in terms of technical matters is very good indeed and he's constructive.
Michael has a forensic brain and is able to assimilate vast amounts of documents and data and formulate a clear, cohesive legal strategy or argument.
Michael Ashdown is fantastic exploring the minutiae of trust issues, and he finds solutions to problems we didn't even know we had!
Michael Furness KC has expertise in complex trust and estate matters, both domestically and offshore.
Michael Furness is brilliant and a pleasure to work with. He delivers very commercially astute, wise advice for clients.
Michael is analytical and gets into the weeds. Clients have confidence in him.
Robert Ham KC focuses on trusts and other private client work, including tax matters, both contentious and non-contentious. He is regularly instructed in offshore cases.
Robert Ham is one of the deans of the private wealth Bar.
Robert is a legendary figure. He is an absolutely stupendous trusts lawyer.
Elizabeth Houghton advises on a wide range of commercial and chancery matters. She is regularly involved in cases in offshore jurisdictions.
Elizabeth always comes up with meticulously well-researched end products. She's smart and personable.
Elizabeth Houghton came into a matter on short notice and was on top of the detail so quickly, it was astonishing. She got the client's trust so quickly, too.
Jonathan Davey KC is frequently sought after for high-value and high-profile traditional chancery matters. He is noted for his expertise in charities and for his handling of highly complex tax litigation.
Jonathan is excellent – he really stands out and shines on his feet in court. He added value as an advocate in court, transitioned witnesses onto the path we wanted, and exceeded our expectation in getting what we wanted; he's very strategic. He is excellent at trial and gives sage advice.
Jonathan Davey is a dream to work with. He really inspires the trust of the court and has so much experience. Judges like him, solicitors like him, junior counsel like him. He works hard to pitch the case at the right level.
Jonathan commands the court. He's very smooth and a killer at cross-examination.
Tiffany Scott KC has a depth of experience in both contentious and non-contentious trusts matters, and is frequently instructed by high net worth individuals and top firms. Her practice also includes advisory work, and she is noted for her involvement in offshore work.
Tiffany Scott is very much a team player. She can put things very well and intelligibly for the client so they can understand this very complex area.
Tiffany is so reliable and great fun to work with. She's great with clients and her judgement is good.
Tiffany Scott is very flexible. Her breadth of knowledge on the law is comforting and outstanding.
Anna Littler's chancery practice regularly involves significant offshore trusts matters. She also advises clients on commercial matters involving insolvency and civil fraud.
Anna is extremely intelligent, very sensible and practical to deal with, and extremely knowledgeable in the work she provides. A pleasure to deal with, she is thorough and responsive in the work she does.
Anna has an excellent strategic instinct and cuts through complex issues with consummate ease. Her client-handling skills are second to none.
Anna Littler is easy to speak to and is always available for questions. She filters out some of the techy legal stuff that the client may not want and makes that advice more commercial.
Edward Sawyer acts on both contentious and non-contentious matters involving trusts, probate and succession, both domestic and offshore.
Edward Sawyer does an incredible volume of trust work, and when he stands up in front of court, the judge listens.
Edward Sawyer is responsive, quick to get on top of issues, and a good strategic thinker who is commercial in his approach as well.
Jennifer Seaman is a specialist in probate and estate disputes, as well as pensions and inheritance matters.
Jennifer Seaman is particular and thoughtful. She is very clear and thoughtful in her advice.
Joseph Steadman is an experienced chancery barrister with a broad practice involving property, pensions and trusts matters.
Joseph Steadman is very approachable, practical and commercial. He has amazing attention to detail and can deal with clients in an approachable and clear manner.
Joseph is a fantastic advocate. He is analytical and detail-focused, but also excellent at considering the broader picture for clients.
He is completely phenomenal. He is so effective, like a silk. Joseph's advocacy is really fantastic and smooth, and his written documents are brilliant. He works seamlessly with instructing solicitors and between fraud, chancery and trusts issues.
Nikki Singla KC is a trusts and chancery silk with experience in helping high and ultra high net worth individuals with a variety of litigated matters, both onshore and offshore.
Nikki's insight and knowledge of trust law is incisive; he's very well versed. He is very good in terms of how he explains things simply.
Nikki is a dynamic and firm advocate.
Nikki Singla has a very strong traditional chancery practice. He's very good, knows all the law, and comes from a commercial litigation background. The quality of his work is very good.
Zoë Barton KC has a broad chancery practice, which makes her a particularly fine choice of counsel for matters with commercial or real property aspects. She is also noted for her work on Court of Protection matters.
Zoë Barton is great: fearsome, dedicated to the cause, and a great advocate. She has a great combination of thoroughness and being on top of the details and, when in front of the court, putting the bigger picture together.
Zoë Barton is very good. She comes up with inventive and creative strategies to maximise prospects of success.
Zoë is forthright, tenacious and formidable. She has managed difficult clients very well for me. I'm very pleased with her work, and she's my first choice if I have a difficult problem or a difficult client finding it hard to accept advice.
James Goodwin's chancery practice sees him acting on a range of onshore and offshore trust matters.
James Goodwin is fantastic to work with. He's skilled, hard-working, and knows the law inside and out.
James is great, particularly at writing letters. He is good at putting various correspondences together – very careful and good on detail.
Samuel Cathro is an experienced junior barrister with a breadth of traditional chancery experience. He often assists wealthy clients with litigating their private wealth and trusts disputes.
Samuel is very talented and can get to grips with very dense, technical matters. His written work is really strong and he is very capable on technical work.
Samuel is very clever and churns through papers quickly. He does great drafting and is very reliable.
Samuel Cathro shows an impressive grasp of the handling, in applications and submissions, of intricate legal and factual arguments. He drafts clearly and quickly under pressure.
Simon Atkinson has expertise in trusts, estates and property-related disputes. He acts for a variety of international high net worth clients.
Simon Atkinson is brilliant and knows the law inside out. He provides a very quick turnaround. Clients like him because he's commercial and also unflappable.
Simon is a highly intelligent counsel who is very easy to work with.
Simon's advocacy in particular is extremely persuasive.
Tom Roscoe is noted for his work on high-value offshore trusts matters, particularly in Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the BVI.
Tom has incredibly good judgement. His written voice and the way he does his drafting and skeleton arguments is utterly compelling. He works incredibly hard for clients.
Tom Roscoe is brilliant. He's very hard-working and produces impeccable work. He is the lifeblood of a case; he's the junior you want on a case.
Tom is great – a character and a total pleasure to have on your team. He is technically brilliant, generous with his time, strategically tuned-in and pragmatic. He can cut through the noise, and does it all with humour and grace.
