Head of Private Client Legal

At Moore SGD Law, our Private Client Legal team supports individuals and families with all aspects of estate administration, planning and asset protection. We provide clear, pragmatic legal advice across personal and business-related estates, ensuring clients feel confident and supported at every stage.

We are now looking for an experienced Director or Partner to lead and develop our Private Client Legal team. This is a standout opportunity to shape the direction of our private client legal offering, bring your own ideas and contacts, and influence how our private client proposition continues to evolve across Moore SGD Law and the broader MKS network. You will take a visible role in growing the practice, driving collaboration with colleagues across the Group, and expanding both your own and the firm’s client base. In addition to setting the strategic direction, you will play a hands-on leadership role – supporting and developing junior lawyers, ensuring high standards of technical quality, and representing the team across the firm and in the market.

Key Responsibilities

• Close supervision of junior members of the team, including regular one-to-one meetings to discuss workloads and give specific feedback on their work and progress in their roles;
• Adherence to the firm’s “four-eyes” policy which entails reviewing in conjunction with another member of the team draft documents and correspondence sent to clients and third parties;
• Develop an internal network, in particular with the firm’s Private Client Tax and Financial Advisory teams as part of the firm’s holistic offering to clients;
• Advise the firm’s Trust Corporation and trust team on the legal aspects of administering trusts and interpreting historic trust deeds;
• Proactively manage the billing process by setting realistic fee estimates; agreeing revised fee estimates where applicable; identifying invoices to be raised each month; sending invoices to clients where appropriate; reviewing aged WIP; working with the credit control team to pursue outstanding invoices; and reviewing WIP provisions each month;
• Regularly check the team’s probate pages on the firm’s website to ensure they conform to the SRA transparency rules;
• Actively participate in business development activities, including preparing comments and articles for the national press and professional publications; willingness to speak at events such as seminars and webinars; and speak in videos to be posted on social media and on the firm’s website on various Private Client legal matters.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Ability to take instructions for, prepare and explain complex wills, in particular for high net worth clients with blended families and/or business assets;
• Ability to draft and interpret various trust deeds, including discretionary trusts, age contingent trusts, declarations of trust over assets and bare trusts;
• Ability to advise on the TRS;
• A complete understanding of the probate process in England and Wales, including making online and paper probate applications;
• A good understanding of the treatment of capital and income within an estate, their tax treatment for CGT and income tax purposes and the preparation of estate accounts;
• Advising on whether it would be appropriate or tax efficient for a beneficiary to vary, discount or make a gift of their inheritance;
• Awareness of the probate process in other jurisdictions, such as forced heirship rules and the enforceability of a UK Will and/or grant of probate in other jurisdictions;
• Comprehensive understanding of the inheritance tax regime and estate planning techniques in particular in relation to lifetime gifts, transfers into and distributions from a trust, the function and tax treatment of FICs, the GROB rules and available reliefs, in particular BPR;
• An understanding of all forms of powers of attorney, in particular both types of LPA but also EPAs and general powers;
• A good understanding of the MCA 2005 and its application in particular to the preparation of wills and its interaction with Banks v Goodfellow;
• An understanding of the provisions of the 1975 Act and a spouse or dependant’s right to make a claim under the Act.