60-second interview: James Ward

What immediate and long-term priorities do you face in your new role?

Seddons has an excellent reputation as a property firm. My immediate aim is to make sure our clients and external referrers are aware that we also offer a wide range of private client services for high net worth clients from the UK and abroad. In the long term, I want to see the private client practice grow and become a more integral part of the firm.

What are your clients talking to you about at the moment?

I work closely with our family law department, who regularly advise clients on prenups and no-nups (co-habitation agreements). I have seen far more interest from young couples also wanting to protect their assets after death by using discretionary or life interest trust in their wills. If they have children then a life interest trust, with their spouse as the life tenant and the children as remaindermen, will protect the capital assets against the survivor remarrying and/or having more children. I much prefer going down this route instead of mutual wills.

What trends are you following?

I am concerned, following the recent consultation document, that at some point in the future an individual will be restricted to one lifetime nil-rate band when setting up lifetime trusts. While it is not entirely certain how this will work in practice, I do think it will have an impact on the number of trusts set up. With this in mind, I am working with our corporate team to promote setting up family limited partnerships to better assist clients in their succession planning while mitigating the taxation issues of the relevant property regime.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned during your career?

This sounds clichéd but perhaps the best advice I can give is: listen carefully to your client. As a private client solicitor, you have to take on board as much information as possible about the client, their family, their finances, their plans for the future, the issues of their past, etc. Only with this information are you able to give them the best advice possible.

What are the greatest challenges or concerns around mental capacity and estate planning at the moment?

I am slightly biased but the greatest challenge is the ever-increasing problem of not being able to access digital assets after the owner dies or loses their mental capacity. As part of my role on the STEP Mental Capacity Steering Committee, I sit on the STEP digital asset task force and have lectured on the issues facing fiduciaries in accessing digital assets. The problem is that more and more people have their lives online but there is no joined-up protocol in place between online providers and the law that allows authorised third parties access. This can have a serious impact financially and socially, and it is only going to get worse.

What attracted you to Seddons?

I had always known Seddons as a dynamic West End practice, so when I was approached to help develop its private client offering it was an opportunity too good to turn down. Its desire to continue developing its brand and the quality of its legal services to cater for its growing and diverse client base particularly impressed me.

What’s the strategy behind Seddons Private and what will you bring to the team?

So many of our clients are high net worth individuals, be it property investors or company owners. Seddons Private is designed to bring together all the key areas of personal law, including family, property, succession planning and litigation to offer the best service for their extensive and changing needs, like
a one-stop shop.

I have also found it useful to be in regular communication with solicitors from all areas of the firm, as it makes
me better equipped to assist my client if an area of law arises in their lives that is outside the scope of my services. I can then, with confidence, refer them on to the most relevant solicitor within the firm.

James Ward is a partner at Seddons 

Jennifer Palmer-Violet is editor of Private Client Adviser