Charities

Serle Court is widely recognised as a leading set for charities, with members providing specialist advice and advocacy across all levels of seniority.

Our barristers regularly appear in courts and tribunals – from the Supreme Court to the First-Tier Tribunal – representing leading charities, government departments, trustees and other key stakeholders.

Our expertise covers the full range of contentious and non-contentious charity work, including:

• Charity proceedings – such as breach of charitable trust/fiduciary duty claims, applications for schemes and internal disputes.
• Tribunal proceedings – including appeals or reviews of Charity Commission decisions.
• Operational and governance matters – including regulatory applications to the Charity Commission, governance advice, and legal aspects of the holding and use of charitable resources.
• Significant structural decisions – such as the restructuring of charities or amendments to governing documents.
• Charitable trusts disputes – including disputes about gifts to charity or charities in wills.

Much of Serle Court’s work in this area is confidential and sensitive.

Charity law can be readily complemented by expertise in other related areas, such as trusts or property law, and members regularly collaborate, contributing charities expertise to wider legal teams. Our work in this area is most frequently domestic, but our barristers also advise, where appropriate, in jurisdictions where the English law of charities is influential.

Members have acted for or advised the Charity Commission, the Attorney General, ministerial government departments, charity trustees, interim managers, and other interested parties. Most of the significant charity cases over the last 20 years feature Serle Court barristers.

One of our members is Junior Counsel to the Treasury in Charity Matters, advising and (where necessary in litigation) representing the Attorney General as constitutional defender of charity and the charitable interest.

Leading textbooks involving our barristers include the 11^th edition (and forthcoming 12th edition) of Tudor on Charities (Sweet & Maxwell, 2022).