Leaders List interview: 60 seconds with Guillaume Staal, Dickinson Gleeson

Date: 01 Feb 2023

Silvia Ricciardi

Citywealth speaks to Guillaume Staal, Jersey Advocate and Partner at Dickinson Gleeson.

Citywealth speaks to Guillaume Staal, Jersey Advocate and Partner at Dickinson Gleeson, who deals with allegations of breaches of fiduciary duty, contractual disputes, enforcement of foreign judgments and associated freezing and disclosure orders.

• I am a Jersey Advocate and Partner at Dickinson Gleeson.
• I advise individuals and fiduciaries in relation to disputes arising from their commercial and trust relationships. My principal areas of expertise include dealing with allegations of breaches of fiduciary duty, contractual disputes, enforcement of foreign judgments and associated freezing and disclosure orders.
• I also help clients identify and resolve issues before they give rise to disputes or even contentious proceedings, be it by way of constructive correspondence, blessing applications or settlement conversations. Prevention is better than cure!

Growing our team. As a highly ranked but smaller firm, we are always looking for bright, motivated and ambitious people to join our team, gain valuable experience dealing with high quality work and develop their careers and the firm’s offering (whilst living in an easily accessible wonderful island providing an ideal setting for an outdoor-focused lifestyle and a sensible work life balance).

Dealing with a varied and challenging caseload involving multi-jurisdictional and high value disputes, usually highly charged with personal emotions for some, if not all, of the parties involved.

I am not sure it will require legislation but I look forward to further developments in the litigation funding/ATE insurance space increasing the potential recoverability of success fees or premia in certain circumstances to allow more meritorious claims to be pursued and further mitigate against the frequent imbalance in commercial power between prospective parties.

Insofar as they have been kind enough to let me know, I recall “responsive, considered and pragmatic”, “clear and concise in his drafting, he is a real team player” but one in particular was my favourite, reflecting my aim to deliver great service to my clients by being approachable and responsive, “despite his work load, he has the ability to make you feel like you are his only client”.

It is a privilege to be recognised by independent parties and feature amongst such a prestigious list of peers, some of whom have been in practice for far longer than I have.

Treat others as you would like to be treated.

And in the context of legal work, prepare everything as if you were the one going to argue in Court. I received this advice some years ago as a graduate, but it remains just as valuable today now that I have the opportunity to appear before the Court: it is a useful reminder to ensure matters are always considered as thoroughly as possible and not to draft anything you could not justify or defend before a judge.