7 Harrington Street

Family and civil departments.

Call: 1981

Practice Areas Family

Financial Remedy on Divorce, with a special expertise in all matters relating to Pension Sharing or Offsetting. Financial Remedy between Civil Partners. Financial Provision for Children under Schedule 1 Children Act Private FDRs Arbitration

Civil

Trusts of Land

Public Access

Chambers and Partners 2023 Ranked Band 1

Family: Matrimonial Finance Northern Bar

An experienced family law specialist who has particular expertise in financial remedy cases, particularly those involving high-value assets. He is also regularly instructed to act in TOLATA cases.

Strengths: “He is clear, concise, helpful and efficient. He is very experienced with an excellent legal brain.” “Grant is very well known for his expertise in pensions cases. He’s an exceptional advocate.”

Areas of Practice

Practice

Grant Lazarus was called to the bar in November 1981. With over 42 years’ experience, he has now refined his areas of specialism to concentrate almost wholly upon the financial consequences of the breakdown of relationships (including marriages, same-sex marriages and civil partnerships) – as well as Trusts of Land claims, whether between cohabitees or other co-owners. This often includes the inter-play of Trusts of Land and Partnership issues within applications for financial remedy on Divorce.

For 6 years between 2013 -2019, Grant was instructed in over 160 Professional Negligence claims arising out of issues of Pension Sharing or Offsetting. This has given him a unique insight into the problems of Pension Sharing, the interplay between different forms of Defined Benefits or Defined Contributions Pensions and the pitfalls of attempting to conclude such matters without properly expert guidance.

Grant has presented seminars extensively in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. He has also lectured by ‘Webinar” to Solicitors nationally, and continued to contribute to the “White Paper” seminars by filming throughout the Covid Lockdowns. Grant has welcomed the return of live seminars in 2022, and has again been invited to lecture to the Judicial College in May 2023. He chairs the White Paper seminar in London in June 2023. His feedback from the White Paper Seminar in Manchester in April 2023 was outstanding, placing him in the top 3% of the 2,771 speakers across all of the White Paper subjects.

Grant specialises in financial remedy work of high net worth, particularly those involving farms, companies, and high value pension arrangements. He receives instructions in relation to Financial Remedy and Trusts of Land from all parts of England & Wales. He (usually) travels extensively for Court appearances and Conferences, although such travel was curtailed by the National Coronavirus emergency, which meant that Grant was able to take full advantage of the “Barristerial Tardis of Zoom”. He has for many years been happy to undertake Conferences by telephone, even in complex matters, in order to help clients to avoid travel and expense, and is equally happy to do so by Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

Grant is experienced in telephone and video link hearings, and was actively involved in promoting the local and national use of technology to ensure that cases continued to be heard when Courtrooms were closed. The use of e-bundles has become the norm. Grant is experienced in the receipt of instructions electronically and he prefers to conduct all cases without receipt of paper.

Public Access

Grant is qualified and experienced in the direct receipt of instructions on a Public Access basis, without the need for a Solicitor. Not all cases are suitable for such an arrangement, but clients have often found it very helpful to have an experienced overview of the issues and risks of litigation at an early stage in financial remedy and Trusts of Land disputes. Just as often, as such cases approach

FDR or Trial, litigants who have previously been acting person see the benefit of instructing Grant on a Public Access basis to bring their claims to a conclusion.

Private FDRs

With the pressure on courts increasing each year, cases are taking longer to get a hearing, and judges are being allowed less time to hear and consider them. Even before March 2020, it had become increasingly common in London and Manchester over recent years for the parties in Financial Remedy disputes to choose to arrange for their FDR to be conducted privately by experienced and specialist Financial Remedy Counsel, sitting as private FDR judges. Not only is this practice approved by the President of the Family Division, it is now actively encouraged by the National Lead Judges of the Financial Remedies Court.

The initial view of the clients is inevitably to query the reasons for incurring the extra expense of jointly instructing Counsel to oversee an FDR, when District Judges come for free.

The benefits to those cautious clients are, however, readily apparent to the Solicitors who choose to take this path:-

Instead of waiting for Court availability months after an FDA, an early date can be fixed immediately; Instead of finding out (usually the night before) that the FDR is not in fact listed to be heard by the experienced full-time DJ who was expected and is to be heard by a Deputy with no real experience in this specialist field, the identity of private FDR Counsel is a matter of specific choice; Instead of being informed the day before the FDR by the Court Office that “we haven’t got a Judge”, the private FDR judge is committed to the case; The parties will have the benefit of a dedicated FDR judge for the entire day. Unlike in the time-pressed Court setting, a private FDR judge will not have an afternoon of telephone hearings and private law children disputes to determine.

Grant Lazarus is available to act as FDR judge in a private setting.

For those parties who prefer to continue to attend a hearing in person, Harrington Street facilitate conference rooms for both sides (or more if there are intervenors), together with the effective FDR Hearing in our seminar room. Alternatively, arrangements can easily be made for video link access for those who would prefer for their FDR to be conducted remotely, so as to avoid unnecessary travel, whether that is for reasons of time, expense or simple convenience.

Arbitration

In September 2018, Grant qualified as an IFLA Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators for Financial Remedy, Schedule 1 Children Act Applications, and TOLATA. The advantages of choosing an Arbitrator who is an experienced Barrister in the specialist field of Financial Remedy are an obvious extension of those that relate to a Private FDR. The cost to the parties of using Arbitration rather than the Court system will almost always be outweighed by the savings in costs achieved overall by making the early decision to identify the issues that are specific to an individual case and arbitrating them. In addition, the parties will enjoy the benefit of avoiding delay, and the certainty of a tribunal that brings proper experience and expertise to the forum. The Arbitration Agreement entered into by the parties ahead of the hearing provides for the decision (“an Arbitral Award”) then to be converted into a Final Court Order. The use of Institute of Family Law Arbitrators is expressly approved by the President of the Family Division. For further information please follow this link http://ifla.org.uk/divi/wp-content/uploads/Arbitrators.pdf

Grant’s immense experience as an advocate, often coupled with his expertise in difficult areas of pension sharing or offsetting has been of huge benefit to his practice as an Arbitrator, where he is chosen as the tribunal by other Counsel who value the efficiency and clarity of a hearing before a ‘specialist judge’.

If you wish to instruct Grant as Counsel, or are interested in the possibility of arranging a private FDR or Arbitration, please contact either John Kilgallon, Practice Director, on 0151 242 0700 (email: [email protected]) or Carolyn Cregeen, Senior Family Clerk, on 0151 242 0701 (email: [email protected]).