Awards
- Ranked in Tier I of eprivateclient’s Top Law Firms 2019
- Private Client team shortlisted for STEP’s ‘Private Client Legal Team of the Year – mid size’
- Camilla Wallace, Head of Private Client Group, awarded ‘Woman of the Year’ at Citywealth’s prestigious Magic Circle Awards, named in The Spears 500 as one of the top Tax & Trusts Advisors as well as being shortlisted for ‘Lawyer of the Year’ and included as one of eprivateclient’s 50 most influential
- Kate Johnson awarded Citywealth 2019 Future Leaders ‘Lawyer of the Year – Senior Associate’
- Caroline Miller named in Citywealth’s 2019 Future Leaders Top 100 and shortlisted for ‘Lawyer of the Year – Partner’
- Jemma Goddard included in eprivateclient’s top 35 under 35
Wedlake Bell Private Client team in Chambers and The Legal 500
- Wedlake Bell Private Wealth lawyers honoured in Chambers High Net Worth guide (Band 4):
‘The private client team is extremely competent across the range of legal disciplines, but for me it is their empathy and emotional intelligence that stands out. They are quite unlike many law firms. They take care to understand what the client wants and make them comfortable with their engagement with the law. Their advice is practical and comprehensible and properly targeted to the client’s needs.’
- Andrew O’Keeffe (Band 4): ‘He is a very knowledgeable and experienced litigator,” and “really good on domestic probate work and Inheritance Act claims.” A barrister adds that “he’s excellent and has oodles of experience.’
- The “highly regarded” Camilla Wallace (Band 4) is an ‘excellent private client lawyer, with fantastic technical knowledge combined with a clear, down-to-earth style that clients really appreciate” and “Camilla has an outstanding personality and a remarkable strength in working and pointing out the core issue of a specific matter, and does all this in a very enjoyable, clear and relaxed style.’
- Eleanor Metcalf (Band 5) advises clients on UK and international tax and estate planning matters as well as assisting with wills, trusts and other wealth management structures. Her expertise also includes advising on a variety of charity law matters
- Emma Loveday (Band 5) is an ‘outstanding private client lawyer with abundant common sense and a genuine commitment to her clients” and has “absolute command of the residence non-dom regime.‘
- Wedlake Bell Private Client team in the Legal 500:
Our contentious trusts and probate team (tier 3) has ‘particular expertise in variation of trust applications and Court of Protection matters. Ann Stanyer focuses on elder law and elder financial abuse matters. Head of team Andrew O’Keeffe is highly recommended and specialises in contentious probate matters’.
- ‘The team has grown and developed its reputation under the leadership of Andrew O’Keeffe. He has a great ability to spot the right strategy for the right type of dispute’.
- ‘The team is going from strength to strength. It is establishing itself as a growing force in this area. Andrew O’Keeffe brings a huge amount of experience to the team and Caroline Miller is steadily building a reputation as a significant player in this field’.
- ‘The team clearly works closely with its non-contentious colleagues to combine the high level of technical expertise and litigation nous to deliver the best type of advice’.
- ‘Provides a slightly more personal service than many of its competitors – the lawyers are proper players in this area, but somehow manage to keep very high levels of client support alongside their undoubted legal expertise’.
- ‘Andrew O’Keeffe is a very experienced practitioner who will fight his client’s corner but not unreasonably so’.
- ‘Caroline Miller is a great all round lawyer and very good to work with’.
- ‘Caroline Miller and Oliver Embley are diligent, intelligent and careful lawyers’.
- ‘Caroline Miller has carved out a real niche for herself – she is a joy to work with because she has made sure the case is in excellent shape before it even gets to counsel’.
- ‘There are some very able associates, such as Oliver Embley who offers terrific support’.
- ‘Jemma Goddard is a very safe pair of hands and straightforward to deal with’.
Our ‘highly experienced’ and ‘strong and highly proficient’ personal tax, trusts and probate team is also recognised:
- ‘Eleanor Metcalf makes herself very available and is responsive’ and ‘is accessible, practical and knows when to bring in colleagues in other areas, delegate to her team and has a good hands-on approach.’
- ‘Camilla Wallace has an ability to connect with clients and communicate complex tax and legal issues with them in a comprehensible manner. She is very professional and technically very detailed’ and ‘is ambitious and manages a team well.’
- ‘Ann Stanyer leads a very focused and dedicated team and encourages learning and good practice to maintain a high standard of work.’
News
- Ann Stanyer has been asked to write a second edition of her book ‘Financial Abuse of Older Clients: Law, Practice and Procedure‘ as well as being the joint writer on a chapter of the Law Society’s Elderly Client Handbook (publication October 2019) and continuing as contributor to Lexis Nexis ‘Finance & Law for the Older Client’
- Our contentious team successfully acted for the trustees of a £80m trust fund to include an illegitimate great granddaughter in the class of beneficiaries
- Proud sponsors of the 71st Annual Open Exhibition of the Chelsea Art Society for the fifth year running. The Wedlake Bell Award for Young Artist 2019 was presented to Mario Maritan. The team has extensive experience of advising on heritage assets, art and collectibles
Keeping up to date
- Matthew Braithwaite leads our ‘Globally Speaking‘ blog which contains Wedlake Bell’s insights into the issues affecting international investors and traders in UK real estate. The aim of Globally Speaking is not only to keep our audience up to date with the myriad of changes around the taxation affecting international owners of UK real estate which continue unabated but to also consider the wider issues at play with insight from advisors in our private client, real estate and corporate departments to provide a go to resource for both clients and contacts alike.
- We responded to the HMRC consultation on the taxation of trusts and a summary of our main points and our full response can be found here Wedlake Bell Responds To Government’s Trusts Consultation
- We opposed changes to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and Private Residence Relief proposed in HMRC’s consultation published in April whereby the final period exemption will be reduced from 18 to 9 months and lettings relief will only be available where the owner shares occupancy with the tenant.
- We have responded to and opposed plans for the implementation of the EU Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) specifically concerning changes to the trust registration service and in particular the requirement for all ‘express trusts’ to be registered, as this is disproportionate to any money laundering risk and will add unnecessary administrative burdens and cost implications for Trustees.
- Our comments concerning the Residence Nil Rate Band in response to the UK Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) ‘Inheritance Tax Review: Call for Evidence’ published in April 2018 are quoted in the OTS Inheritance Tax review second report, published in July:
‘This adds a further layer of complexity and it is in our experience nearly always impossible for a lay taxpayer to understand and calculate without professional advice… The result of the complex way in which the relief has been structured is that clients do not understand the rules.’
Wedlake Bell’s Private Client Team Respond To Government Consultation On Inheritance Tax (IHT)