Top Ten Tax & Trust Lawyers

‘It’s been an interesting year,’ says Spear’s contributor, award winner and industry grandee Ceris Gardner. ‘When there are problems, or the country is in a bit of turmoil, we tend to have work to do.’ Gardner is one of the most experienced and renowned experts when it comes to advising on tax, estate planning, family governance, charity law, philanthropy and immigration. It’s been a year dominated by client worries on Corbyn and Brexit, and Gardner has also been kept busy with a number of immigration and real estate cases. ‘It’s not putting off people coming to the UK in the same numbers’ as some predictions, Gardner tells Spear’s. Clients include UK and non-UK domiciled and resident individuals, families, estates and trustees, covering UK and international tax and succession issues, establishing UK and offshore trusts, family limited partnerships and other crossborder asset-holding structures. ‘She’s a good thinker and listener, very wise, and cuts through a lot of stuff… she’s someone you’d go to with a problem,’ one client commented of her approach. Gardner is picking up on client worries on land taxation that could arise. ‘The threat of expropriation of assets, reaching out to try to tax assets in Jersey Guernsey, these sort of things are concerning people,’ she says. But she has seen it all and will be able to guide clients through whatever complexities are on the horizon.