Navigating the art market is no small undertaking.
Buying, selling, lending against or financing artwork can be complex, whether it’s an Old Master painting, a contemporary work, a digital piece or a dinosaur fossil. Not only must collectors account for shifting trends in the art market, there are also considerations around provenance, authentication and valuation, as well as how an art collection fits into a wider wealth and tax strategy.
Seeking the advice of an art lawyer is essential for any (U)HNW individual looking to bolster their collections or dip their toe into the art world for the first time: the market ‘needs to be navigated by someone who knows what they are doing’, says art lawyer Petra Warrington of Wedlake Bell.
[See also: Art Basel CEO shows careful confidence in global art market]
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The art lawyers featured in our 2026 index serve a wide range of clients, from international private collectors to dealers, auction houses, galleries, artists and family offices.
Depending on their specialism, they can provide advice on sale and purchase, conduct due diligence and research provenance. Some are experts in import and export practicalities, while others offer expertise around commissioning artists, lending to galleries and exhibitions, or consigning pieces to a museum. Others focus on structuring art collections to make them more tax efficient, or help with financing.
Rudy Capildeo of Wedlake Bell emphases the importance of drawing up robust contracts and making sure that transactions move smoothly. ‘Keeping those contracts as short as possible while making sure everyone’s protected is the magic recipe that we have to try to come up with,’ he tells Spear’s.
Due diligence extends well beyond paintings and sculpture. Fionnuala Rogers of Canvas Art Law, whose practice spans Old Masters, antiquities and natural heritage, says collectors often overlook the need for it in less conventional categories: ‘particularly within natural heritage, they don’t think due diligence is needed’.
[See also: The best art advisers]
Other names in our index are called in to help when things go wrong. Perhaps it is a dispute between a collector and an auction house regarding a question over provenance, a contract dispute or a cross-border restitution matter.
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While some disputes ultimately result in litigation, Warrington says that her firm often conducts ‘private negotiations, where quite often an artwork comes up at auction and it is flagged that there is a provenance gap’. Claimants want to ‘resolve the issue so that the work can be on the market again and free of problems’, she says.
Others are steering disputes away from the courtroom altogether. Eleni Polycarpou of Withers has become an accredited mediator with CEDR (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, a leading UK mediation body), positioning herself as a ‘trusted adviser’ who can help clients resolve matters without going to court.
Capildeo emphasises that technical expertise is just one piece of the puzzle, and as much as ‘60 or 70 per cent of the task in hand is making sure that you understand that market, how it operates [and] how it works.’
Explore the other rankings within the 2026 Spear’s Legal Indices:
The art market in 2026
Fake, no fortune?
This year, art lawyers noted an uptick in instructions early on in the transaction process due to concerns about authenticity and forgeries. Richard Hart of Pinsent Masons explains that ‘more often than not, [forgeries] are really well made by people who know what they are doing, and you can only tell by looking under a microscope or going through archives.
‘When it transpires that something is fake, [clients] feel a lot of shame; they feel very angry, very embarrassed.’ He adds that it is not just new collectors who fall victim; it’s seasoned ones, too. ‘A lot of the time, they won’t sue and will sweep it under the carpet because they don’t want it out there that they have been duped. Sometimes, though, it’s too big to ignore.’
Provenance in the natural world
2025 saw significant growth in sales of natural sciences artefacts, particularly dinosaur fossils bought by collectors for their own private collections or for donation to a museum.
Collectors are treating this asset class differently from traditional artworks, according to Fionnuala Rogers of Canvas Art Law. ‘Particularly within natural heritage, they don’t think [due diligence] is needed,’ she says. This is usually down to thinking that ‘nobody kept paperwork, nobody kept records … Actually, there is a lot of information that people do have, particularly excavation records.’
Rules around ivory items are also complex: while it is currently illegal to trade in ivory, there are very specific circumstances where it is acceptable, according to Mishcon de Reya. Therefore, without a clear paper trail, the value objects of ivory can be severely impacted.
Looted art and the HEAR Act
The Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR) of 2025 became law in the US in April 2026. This law was first coined 10 years ago and was due to expire at the end of 2026; it is now a permanent law and has also removed technical defences based on the passage of time and ‘unreasonable delays’.
It means that families who had art stolen during the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945 can recover works more easily.
Wedlake Bell’s Warrington notes that in the UK, disputes around looted Nazi-era artwork are typically resolved privately rather than going to litigation.
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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.
Best art lawyers: some names to know
Rudy Capildeo
- Focus: Artworks and high-value collectibles
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Wedlake Bell
Rudy Capildeo joined Wedlake Bell together with star partner Tim Maxwell from Charles Russell Speechlys in 2022. As joint head of the art and luxury practice, ‘I help my clients enjoy the objects they love,’ he tells Spear’s, whether that is a watch, a classic car or a work of art.
Capildeo advises on non-contentious issues, which could involve anything from high-value transactions to assistance with financing or lending against collections. He is also experienced in intellectual property rights and matters involving the metaverse and the use of NFTs.
Read Rudy Capildeo’s full profile on Spears500.com
Karen Sanig
- Focus: High-profile art collectors
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Mischon de Reya
Head of Mishcon de Reya’s art law department, which she created in 1995, Karen Sanig is one of the ‘originators’ of the sector, she tells Spear’s.
Sanig acts for clients including world-renowned artists and collectors, art foundations, charities, dealers, auction houses, galleries, museums and governments. She advises on a wide range of matters, such as art sales and purchases, artists’ rights, the creation and management of artists’ estates, and disputes over attribution.
Read Karen Sanig’s full profile on Spears500.com
William Charrington
- Focus: Contractual and fraud disputes
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Farrer & Co
William Charrington, who studied the art law trade under eminent practitioner Adrian Parkhouse, has emerged as the key contact for art disputes at Farrer & Co since Parkhouse’s retirement in 2025.
Charrington is a litigator who advises art dealers, collectors and institutions in relation to intellectual property, contract and provenance disputes, as well as the recovery of stolen and looted works.
Read William Charrington’s full profile on Spears500.com
Richard Hart
- Focus: Art acquisitions and collection building
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: Pinsent Masons
Richard Hart was recommended to Spear’s by a number of his peers at other firms and from the art community as a whole. They highlighted him as a safe pair of hands when it comes to negotiating the tricky confluence of art and the law.
A partner at Pinsent Masons, Hart is a go-to resource for UHNW collectors seeking advice around the purchase of objects of cultural significance, caring for art collections, and the restoration and renovation of historic houses. Much of his practice involves supporting Middle Eastern clients; he also coordinates private collectors’ loans to world-famous museums and galleries.
Read Richard Hart’s full profile on Spears500.com
Fionnuala Rogers
Fionnuala Rogers, an art law specialist who trained and qualified at Pinsent Masons, founded her own firm, Canvas Art Law, in 2017.
She tells Spear’s that her core practice is centred around conducting due diligence and provenance checks on behalf of private and institutional clients, and developing policy and legislation in the cultural heritage sector. Her team has advised on ‘everything, from contemporary artworks to Old Masters, antiquities and natural heritage’ – including dinosaurs and even meteors.
Read Fionnuala Rogers’ full profile on Spears500.com
Best art lawyers: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles on spears500.com. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically by surname.
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With additional reporting by Alice Coleman.
