For UHNW families, trust disputes are rarely just a legal matter; they are deeply personal and often tied to legacy, succession and pride. The Spear’s Contentious Trust Lawyers Index highlights the industry’s top advisers who navigate disputes arising from trustees and beneficiaries of a trust with expert precision and emotional intelligence.
While these lawyers are equipped to escalate matters to litigation, there’s a growing emphasis on resolving issues discreetly. From facilitating the removal and buyout of trustees to advising on breaches of fiduciary duty, many cases are managed in ways that avoid conflict altogether. Pre-emptive advisory work, such as reviewing wills, prenuptial agreements and family contracts, is increasingly used to protect assets before tensions arise.
‘It’s really important to not only advise when an issue arises within a family, but to get to know them and think about what might go wrong in advance,’ says Jessica Henson of Payne Hicks Beach.
Jenny McKeown of Stephenson Harwood notes the biggest increase in her practice to be trust partitioning, driven by second-generation fallouts and poor family planning. ‘Sometimes, the next generation just wants to divide it up and do their own thing.’
Related
Explore the full 2025 Spear’s Tax & Trust Indices:
- Tax Lawyers
- Contentious Trust Lawyers
- Probate and Wills Lawyers
- Tax and Trust Barristers
- Accountants and Tax Advisers
- Trusts, Structuring and Offshore
A new addition to this year’s index, John Tunnard of Shakespeare Martineau, liaises across multiple jurisdictions with some of the UK’s wealthiest families who ‘have company interest both onshore and offshore, as well as agricultural businesses and landed estates.’
In 2025, one issue dominated the agenda: capacity. As people live longer, advisers are seeing more disputes involving vulnerable parties. When a case involves such vulnerable parties and uncertainty over their ability to make decisions, including those facing coercive control or diminished capacity through illness, the role of the adviser becomes not just legal but protective. Multiple advisers, including Mark Keenan of Mishcon de Reya, report a surge in court of protection cases. ‘We’re seeing more and more court of protection disputes … We see a lot of that now and I think we’re going to see a lot more of it in the future.’
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From handling complex cases involving capacity issues to negotiating the exit of a trustee, the lawyers featured in this year’s index demonstrate a combination of legal expertise and a deep understanding of family dynamics, providing UHNW clients with the highest level of service.
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- Methodology
- The best contentious trust lawyers in 2025: some names to know
- The best contentious trust lawyers in 2025: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best contentious trust lawyers in 2025: some names to know
Claire-Marie Cornford
- Focus: Trust, estate and succession disputes
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Irwin Mitchell
Claire-Marie Cornford joined Irwin Mitchell in 2017, having been headhunted from her previous role at Mishcon de Reya, to join the firm’s newly formed private wealth division. As head of wills, trust and estate disputes in London, she leads a dedicated team of lawyers, including a second partner who specialises in Court of Protection cases.
Cornford regularly acts in high-value and complex private wealth disputes for a broad range of clients, including successful entrepreneurs and business leaders, landed gentry, farmers, charities, trustees and HNWs. As part of her practice, she explores mediation, collaborative law, private dispute resolution and arbitration before turning to litigation.
Read Claire-Marie Cornford’s full profile on Spears500.com
Charlotte Fraser
- Focus: Fraud and asset tracing
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Farrer & Co
Charlotte Fraser joined Farrer & Co in 2006 as a trainee solicitor after graduating from the University of Oxford. Having climbed up the ladder, she became a partner at the firm in 2017 and now leads its contentious trusts and estates team.
She frequently advises on matters involving fraud, trust and estate disputes, asset tracing, breaches of trust and jurisdictional issues, as well as delivering freezing injunctions. Her diverse clientele pool includes beneficiaries, trustees, executors and settlors.
Read Charlotte Fraser’s full profile on Spears500.com
Emma Jordan
- Focus: Cross-border and international cases
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Taylor Wessing
Emma Jordan heads up the contentious trusts team at Taylor Wessing, with her practice encompassing civil fraud, and asset tracing and recovery within the context of offshore trusts and structures.
She has a particular focus on representing trustees and high-net-worth clients, and encourages alternative dispute resolution – including mediation – when appropriate.
Read Emma Jordan’s full profile on Spears500.com
Roman Kubiak
- Focus: High-value cross-border disputes
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Hugh James
Roman Kubiak leads the private wealth disputes team at Hugh James. According to the firm, under Kubiak’s supervision the team has gained recognition as a ‘top-ranked department for this type of work in the UK’s leading legal directories’.
His work centres around high-value wills, trust and estate disputes, which regularly require him to act for HNWs, trustees, executors, high-profile figures and charities. In the case of the latter, he is often asked to advise on issues relating to contentious trust and probate.
Read Roman Kubiak’s full profile on Spears500.com
Helena Berman
- Focus: Pension disputes
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Stephenson Harwood
With more than 20 years of experience in complex, high-value trust disputes, Helena Berman of Stephenson Harwood is a leading industry figure.
As a partner and head of the pensions dispute resolution team at the firm, Berman is regularly called upon by both clients and peers to offer her opinion on some of the most contentious issues.
Read Helena Berman’s full profile on Spears500.com
Lynsey Harrison
- Focus: Contentious probate
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: Clarion Solicitors
Lynsey Harrison, a leading senior litigation solicitor, is ‘an impressive lawyer who has so much energy and is very passionate’, according to one industry authority.
The head of Clarion’s Court of Protection practice has more than a decade of experience in dealing with all contentious aspects of probate, wills and trusts, as well as contested Court of Protection matters. She also deals with a wide range of matters concerning individuals’ estates before and after their death.
Read Lynsey Harrison’s full profile on Spears500.com
Scott Taylor
- Focus: Estate disputes
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: Moore Barlow
Scott Taylor heads up Moore Barlow’s private wealth disputes team, which he says is recognised for advising on ‘complex, high-value and high-profile matters’, often with an international aspect.
A well-regarded litigator, Taylor specialises in cases involving allegations of lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, want of knowledge and approval, as well as claims under the Inheritance Act 1975.
Read Scott Taylor’s full profile on Spears500.com
The best contentious trust lawyers in 2025: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles of each adviser on The Spear’s 500 website. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically by surname.
Contact us
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With additional reporting by Caitlin Kilpatrick.
