Managing complex financial affairs while staying compliant with tax regulations requires expert legal guidance. This is what the best tax lawyers provide.
The need is greatest for high-net-worth individuals who face unique challenges thanks to their significant assets, international investments and often complex estate planning needs. Fortunately, the tax lawyers highlighted by Spear’s provide these services and more.
Spear’s Tax & Trust Indices 2024
These industry leaders offer tailored advice on tax-efficient structures, wealth preservation, and cross-border taxation, as well as practical solutions for navigating capital gains, inheritance tax, corporate structures, and more. At a time when there is a huge amount of uncertainty surrounding the UK’s tax policy, particularly regarding HNWs, the need for a qualified tax lawyer has arguably never been greater.
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Best tax lawyers for HNW individuals: names to know
One of our most competitive indices, Tax Lawyers represents some of the brightest names across the UK’s most renowned firms, including the individuals highlighted below. Other notable figures are Bart Peerless of Charles Russell Speechlys, James Quarmby of Stephenson Harwood, Ceris Gardner of Maurice Turnor Gardner, and Chris Moorcroft of Harbottle & Lewis, all of whom achieve Top Flight ranking.
Robert Brodrick – Top Flight
Firm: Payne Hicks Beach
Robert Brodrick relishes his role as chair of Payne Hicks Beach’s management board. But the high-flying private client partner insists he is still very much client-facing.
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With over 25 years’ experience, Brodrick provides specialist tax, trust and estate planning advice for wealthy individuals, their advisers and trustees. His clients include non-domiciliaries, UK-based families, international families with assets in multiple jurisdictions, landed estate owners and business people.
Read Robert Brodrick’s full profile at Spears500.com
Russell Cohen – Top Flight
Firm: Farrer & Co
Russell Cohen is head of international strategy at Farrer & Co and is responsible for their immigration team, who have particular expertise in advising HNW individuals and families on politically sensitive matters.
Much of his work has an international context and he is an expert in tax planning for non-domiciled individuals and non-UK trusts and offers.
Read Russell Cohen’s full profile at Spears500.com
Nick Warr – Top Flight
Firm: Taylor Wessing
Head of the international private wealth group at Taylor Wessing, Nick Warr occupies a special niche in his field as a lawyer who acts for ‘a significant number of finance executives, hedge fund managers and private equity principals from top-tier organisations and funds’.
Given the nature of his client base, the majority of his matters involve two or more jurisdictions and clients range from the US, through Europe to the Middle East.
Read Nick Warr’s full profile at Spears500.com
Mary Elliott – Top Recommended
Firm: Hunters Law
With over 30 years’ experience, Mary Elliott is a Partner in the Private Client department at Hunters Law.
She has extensive experience in all aspects of UK private client work, in particular advising individuals, families and trustees on tax and succession planning, including wills and complex trust and corporate structures, and the use of these structures to achieve the clients’ overriding objectives.
Read Mary Elliott’s full profile at Spears500.com
Oliver Piper – Top Recommended
Firm: Farrer & Co
A partner specialising in private client matters, Oliver Piper of Farrer & Co provides strategic advice and succession planning for UHNW individuals and families, with a particular focus on the Middle East. Many of his clients have complex business interests, often making use of private trust companies, trusts and foundations.
Piper is often involved in matters where there is active litigation – or the prospect of it – and is used to working with the firm’s contentious trusts and estates specialists to provide clients with a comprehensive service.
Read Oliver Piper’s full profile at Spears500.com
Laura Dadswell – Top Recommended
Firm: Penningtons Manches Cooper
Laura Dadswell is a highly rated international tax and trust specialist at Penningtons Manches Cooper.
Working in their private client team, she has particular expertise when it comes to US issues and corporate wealth structuring.
Dadswell has been described as one of the standout private client lawyers of her generation. She offers tailed and sensitive answers to help clients manage their family wealth.
Read Laura Dadswell’s full profile at Spears500.com
Wilfrid Vernor-Miles – Top Recommended
Firm: Hunters Law
With 20 years’ experience advising UK and international clients, including acting as trustee and attorney, Hunters joint head of private client Wilfrid Vernor-Miles boasts considerable expertise when it comes to complex estate and tax planning work. He prides himself in particular in his ability to identify obscure opportunities for clients to minimise their liabilities.
Vernor-Miles has worked extensively with jurisdictions including the US, Channel Islands, Switzerland, Panama, British Virgin Islands, the Far East, South Africa and Mauritius.
Read Wilfrid Vernor-Miles’s full profile at Spears500.com
Sarah von Schmidt – Top Recommended
Firm: Farrer & Co
Sarah von Schmidt of Farrer & Co works with international families and their family offices, advising trustees and beneficiaries on significant trust restructuring and their strategic planning, as well as on family governance and succession matters.
Her UK-based clients include entrepreneurs, family businesses and senior executives, and her work includes succession planning, wealth structuring including establishing trusts and developing philanthropic plans.
Read Sarah von Schmidt’s full profile at Spears500.com
Liz Palmer – Recommended
Firm: Howard Kennedy
Liz Palmer’s clients are diverse but what they all have in common is a need for clear, commercial, and tax-driven private wealth planning advice to achieve succession without dispute. She leads the private wealth sector and private client and family teams.
Palmer advises wealthy families, business owners, property investors and creative clients about inheritance tax mitigation and the devolution of family wealth. She regularly acts for non-UK res/dom individuals and specialises in the creation of offshore trusts.
Read Liz Palmer’s full profile at Spears500.com
Sophie St John – Recommended
Firm: BDB Pitmans
Having been made partner in BDB Pitmans’ private client team in 2022, Sophie St John provides HNW clients, their families and trustees with advice on a wide range of legal and tax issues regarding estate and succession planning, wealth holding and preservation structures (including trusts, UK tax planning and probate).
With an international client base, she has a particular focus on and interest in advising internationally mobile clients, often with a global footprint, on the issues they face in the context of cross-border planning.
Read Sophie St John’s full profile at Spears500.com
Alex Ruffel – Recommended
Firm: Irwin Mitchell
‘The internationalisation of private client work in London has been a big change,’ says Irwin Mitchell partner Alex Ruffel. ‘The world has become smaller in terms of communication and where people have their assets.’
Ruffel specialises in working with global HNWs who wish to relocate or exit from the UK, and the complexity of recent legislation means a move to London often poses interesting problems for HNWs.
Read Alex Ruffel’s full profile at Spears500.com
Lara Barton – Recommended
Firm: Hunters Law
Lara Barton has substantial experience of advising in relation to wills, trusts, powers of attorney, Court of Protection matters, probate and estate administration, including complex areas of expertise and cross-border matters.
Her work has a particular focus on older client law issues, providing legal assistance to older and vulnerable people.
Read Lara Barton’s full profile at Spears500.com
Benjamin Lister – Recommended
Firm: Taylor Wessing
A partner in Taylor Wessing’s private client group, UHNW specialist Ben Lister has ‘extensive expertise advising on inter-generational planning, investment structuring and cross-border relocations’, according to his firm.
The globally minded tax specialist works with an internationally dispersed mix of clients, including those in the Middle East and Europe in addition to those the UK.
Read Benjamin Lister’s full profile at Spears500.com
Robert Macro – Recommended
Firm: Druces
The head of Druces’ private client team, Robert Macro has been praised for his innovative use of investment strategy and has highlighted the need for family offices and offshore providers to address the misreporting around the use of international financial centres.
Macro has significant experience with UK and international tax planning, trust matters, probates, tax disclosures and disputes for banks, trustees, HNWs and companies.
Read Robert Macro’s full profile at Spears500.com
Jonathan Colclough – Recommended
Firm: BDB Pitmans
A partner in BDB Pitmans’ private wealth team, Jonathan Colclough advises UK and international clients on UK tax, trusts, estate and succession issues. His practice has a particular focus on cross-border matters for non-UK domiciled clients, offshore trustees and family offices.
Colclough can also assist family business owners with developing succession plans, or strategising around a business sale.
Read Jonathan Colclough’s full profile at Spears500.com
Helen Clarke – Recommended
Firm: Irwin Mitchell
With more than 20 years’ experience in the field, Irwin Mitchell’s Helen Clarke specialises in tax and estate planning involving complex trust and company structures for HNWs.
Her particular areas of focus include intricate tax and strategic estate planning, as well as advising business owners on structuring and restructuring to maximise tax efficiency for their companies, themselves and their families.
Read Helen Clarke’s full profile at Spears500.com
Julia Lewis – Recommended
Firm: Hunters Law
Julia Lewis is a Partner in the Private Client department at Hunters, bringing with her a wealth of knowledge and experience in tax and trusts, with a particular focus on estate planning, landed estates and heritage property.
Julia has extensive experience advising on Wills, powers of attorney, probate and the administration of estates. Additionally, her work involves supervising other members of the Private Client department in relation to the full range of private client work, including probate.
Read Julia Lewis’s full profile at Spears500.com
Matthew Gamman – Recommended
Firm: Cone Marshall
Matthew Gamman is the director of the London office of Cone Marshall, where he oversees operations for its UK trusts provider. He says he advises internationally minded UHNW clients and wealthy families with ‘bespoke and complex’ tax planning arrangements.
As part of his role, Gamman regularly travels to the firm’s Geneva office, assisting clients with ‘sophisticated structures from across the globe’.
Read Matthew Gamman’s full profile at Spears500.com
Naomi Wilkes – Recommended
Firm: Moore Barlow
Naomi Wilkes, a private wealth solicitor at Moore Barlow, provides succession and estate planning advice to high-net-worth individuals along the south coast of England and internationally.
Her clients are mostly business owners who reach a point in their lives when they begin to think about how the wealth they have generated can best be passed to their families.
She said: ‘They are individuals who have set up their own business, worked hard, done well. Even though they might be talking about business interests, actually I’m advising on their personal affairs.’
Read Naomi Wilkes’ full profile at Spears500.com
Methodology
In selecting and ranking the best tax lawyers for HNW individuals, the Spear’s Research Unit conducts extensive research of the market, including interviews with well-informed observers, industry insiders and of course the advisers themselves. These take place both face-to-face, and on video and telephone calls. Candidates for inclusion are asked to fill in a form to provide data and a description of their work and client base. In finalising its selections and rankings, the Spear’s Research Unit employs a proprietary methodology that includes a weighted scoring system. This takes into account factors including an adviser’s standing, reputation, client base, recommendations and testimonials, the firm they represent, their level of engagement with the process and certain industry-specific criteria.
Best tax lawyers for HNW individuals: 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.
Find out more
To explore all the Spear’s indices, and to use our find-an-adviser tool to identify the private client adviser who is right for your specific requirements, go to the Spear’s 500 website.
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