Sinclair Gibson LLP

Keith Bruce-Smith

Keith, who is ranked in the Legal 500 ‘Hall of Fame’, is a senior private client tax and trusts lawyer with over 40 years’ experience in the area of trust and estate planning for wealthy UK and foreign families. Keith has a well-earned reputation for an innovative approach and a robust, incisive style. He is particularly regarded for his commercial and technical acumen. Keith acts for a wide spectrum of UK and foreign families, advising on the management of their wealth and its tax-efficient devolution down the generations. He has extensive experience in advising on landed estates, and is a trustee or protector of both domestic and offshore trusts, giving him a depth of knowledge of the issues involved in structuring major trusts and devising creative and commercial solutions in relation to the devolution of family wealth. Keith was the co-author of ‘Practical Will Precedents’ and ‘Practical Trust Precedents’ (Sweet & Maxwell) and an original co-editor of ‘International Trust Precedents’ (Sweet & Maxwell). He is described in the Legal 500 as ‘high calibre’ and in Chambers & Partners as ‘a master strategist’ who ‘brings fresh and creative thinking to complex situations’.

Lucy Gibson

Lucy Gibson is a private client trust and tax lawyer. She primarily advises wealthy private clients and trustees on the establishment and restructuring of family and charitable trusts for devolution purposes and tax mitigation. Lucy’s practice is a broad one, advising private clients and trustees, often internationally-based, on a variety of litigious and non-contentious matters including trust variations and compromise proceedings (both contested and consensual), trustee removal proceedings and contested wills. Lucy has been consistently recognised as a leading individual in her field in Chambers & Partners which described her as “widely acclaimed for international trust and estate law expertise,” and “extremely able, highly intelligent”. Lucy is also often asked to advise trustees in the context of claims against them or when trustees become involved, possibly unwillingly, in proceedings ancillary to divorce in London. She is frequently instructed by other solicitors and accountancy firms to give independent advice to particular family members or a specific beneficial class in complex trust and probate cases. She also provides bespoke trust drafting services to a number of trust companies, often international, and financial institutions.