Joanna Baker > Ashtons Legal > Suffolk, England > Lawyer Profile
Ashtons Legal Offices
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Portman House
120 Princes Street
IPSWICH
IP1 1RS
England
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Joanna Baker
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Work Department
Private Wealth Disputes
Position
Partner
Career
Joanna qualified as a Chartered Legal Executive in 2006 having originally trained with the firm as a general dispute resolution lawyer; re-joining in January 2019 and became a Partner in April 2024. She has worked in both private practice and in-house, where she was the sole disputes practitioner working on a broad litigation caseload.
Over the last few years, Joanna has relished developing a practice which specialises in contentious probate, court of protection and trust matters and is a member of ACTAPS (Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists). She has experience in advising beneficiaries, executors, attorneys and trustees in relation to bringing and defending:
- claims for reasonable financial provision from an estate
- claims relating to the validity of wills and trust documents
- rectification claims
- removal of executors and trustees
- mental capacity matters
- breach of trust claims
- proprietary estoppel claims
- contentious Court of Protection matters.
Prominent cases include:
- Hudson v Hathway – High Court (Queen’s Bench Division)
- Hewson v Wells & Ors – Royal Courts of Justice
Joanna prides herself on the empathy and the rapport she has with clients, has a proven track record of resolving complex trust and probate disputes, and recognises the need for flexibility in the funding of these claims, where appropriate (alternative funding arrangements are considered by the firm on a case by case basis). She enjoys working as part of a team to ensure that clients’ needs are met, at the right level, with proportionality at the forefront of all that she does.
Joanna provides timely and cost effective advice to her clients, looking for proactive solutions to their sensitive needs and works closely internally with our non-contentious lifetime planning and court of protection teams and externally with Counsel. This niche area of work can be very time consuming and emotionally difficult for our clients, so Joanna and the team work alongside them to guide them through the process as efficiently and easily as we can. We are committed to the constructive resolution of disputes by mediation or negotiation wherever possible, only resorting to the courts where absolutely appropriate.
Joanna is a dementia friend.
Lawyer Rankings
East Anglia > Private client > Contentious trusts and probate
The contentious trusts and probate group at Ashtons Legal is noted as being ‘able to cut through the knotty issues and work collaboratively to reach desirable end goals‘. Partner and ACTAPS member Polly Stephenson and senior associate Katie Emerson, both based in Ipswich, combine ‘big legal brains with commercial pragmatism and huge amounts of emotional sensitivity‘. Stephenson recently defended a client individual in a £250,000 claim brought by her former partner. Litigation partner Annabel Mayer in Bury St Edmunds and ‘responsive, efficient and practical‘ Ipswich-based legal executive Joanna Baker are also highly recommended.
Lawyer Rankings
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Private client > Agriculture and estates
- Private client > Contentious trusts and probate
- Corporate and commercial > Corporate and commercial: elsewhere in East Anglia
- Private client > Personal tax, trusts and probate: Norwich
- Insurance > Personal injury and clinical negligence: claimant
- Private client > Personal tax, trusts and probate: elsewhere in East Anglia
Firm Rankings
- Finance > Banking and finance
- Dispute resolution > Commercial litigation: Cambridge
- Dispute resolution > Commercial litigation: Norwich
- Real estate > Commercial property: Cambridge
- Real estate > Commercial property: elsewhere in East Anglia
- Real estate > Commercial property: Norwich
- Corporate and commercial > Corporate and commercial: Norwich
- Employment > Employment
- Private client > Family
- Finance > Insolvency and corporate recovery
- TMT (technology, media and telecoms) > IT and telecoms
- Private client > Personal tax, trusts and probate: Cambridge
- Private client > Personal tax, trusts and probate: Norwich
- Real estate > Planning and environment
- Real estate > Property litigation
- Transport > Transport and shipping
- Dispute resolution > Commercial litigation: elsewhere in East Anglia