Queen Elizabeth Building (QEB)

Queen Elizabeth Building specialises in family law, particularly matrimonial finance and international family law, but also in child law including child abduction and forced marriage.

The set: QEB has been established for well over 100 years and is consistently rated as one of the top-ranking sets for family law. It is forward-looking and client focused. Chambers has expanded premises to provide more conference rooms and enhanced facilities for private FDRs and other forms of dispute resolution including arbitration, mediation and collaborative law.

Many members of chambers are listed as leaders in their field in the annual publications The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners.

The legal directories praise for QEB includes the following published reviews:  a heavyweight family law chambers quite simply the best for top-end family law services:  a long-held reputation for excellence; a hotbed of talent; a good commercial sense; a fine tradition of producing the very best financial barristers; a top-quality service;  jam-packed with trouble-shooters capable of tackling the thorniest money cases and offers real depth of experience across the silk and junior end of the market (Chambers and Partners);

While The Legal 500 says -  QEB is the best family set from top to bottom, with an eminent matrimonial practice, which has been in the top echelons for decades. The barristers are of consistently high quality, they never let you down and solicitors cannot praise them highly enough. Members appear in the most important family cases, particularly involving high-net-worth finance and complex cross-jurisdiction elements.

QEBs success and distinction is not a recent phenomenon QEB has always had an excellent reputation for the quality of the advocates which it produces and has been involved in many high-profile and historic decisions. Many members of chambers have continued into high judicial office; Lord Wilson sits in the Supreme Court. In addition, Sir Alan Ward, following his retirement from the Court of Appeal and Sir David Bodey and Sir Paul Coleridge, following their retirement as High Court judges, have joined chambers as associate members. Sir Alan Ward is the chair of the Civil Mediation Council and acts as an arbitrator, private-FDR judge and mediator, Sir David Bodey and Sir Paul Coleridge act as arbitrators and private-FDR/ENE judges.

Types of work undertaken: QEB is particularly well known for dealing with the financial consequences of relationship breakdown; but there is immense experience in all aspects of family law, including: jurisdictional disputes, foreign divorces, pre-marital agreements, civil partnerships, injunctions (both financial and domestic), public and private law child work, child abduction and forced marriage, Inheritance Act claims and disputes between former cohabitees. In addition, some members practice in general common law with particular emphasis on personal injury and professional negligence work. In particular The Legal 500 noted the resurgence of QEBs children work in recent years.

As a complement to its international work, QEB offers a range of languages including members of Chambers professionally fluent in French, German, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu.

Members of QEB appear in courts throughout the country and abroad, ranging from magistrates courts to the UK Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union. The confidentiality of chambers work is strictly respected but recent public decisions in which members of QEB were briefed include: Jones, Z v Z (No 2), Petrodel v Prest and Cooper-Hohn, AB v JB (EMR modification), Arif v Anwar, Broomfield, A v B (CJEU), E v E (Art 19 and Seisin B IIa), and Fields.

QEB has always been at the forefront of the development of matrimonial law and members of QEB have appeared in many of the leading authorities, including such seminal decisions as Wachtel, F v F, Duxbury, Preston, White, Miller, Charman, and Spencer.

The QEB clerks are happy to recommend particular members for particular cases, and provide charging rates on request, as well as practical assistance in the management of cases. The QEB clerks are regularly singled out for special praise by external commentators who have hailed the superlative clerking at QEB which is rightly described as seamless, professional and courteous and the best in London, without question.