The bar
Hot 100: Daniel Lightman, Serle Court
As a member of one of the leading commercial/chancery sets and home to some of the bar’s toughest advocates, Daniel Lightman (scroll down for video interview) has carved out a name for himself at Serle Court for taking on legally significant but unusual cases.
In July 2012, as junior counsel for Israel Perry, a prisoner in an Israeli prison, he won a victory against the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) when the Supreme Court ruled that Soca could not use its recovery powers against property located outside the UK or deploy its invasive investigatory powers against people who are outside the UK.
While the substantive claim continues into 2013 so does a series of other high-profile cases. In March he will appear at the Supreme Court as part of the team appealing one of last year’s most high-profile divorce rulings, where the Court of Appeal held that companies belonging to oil tycoon Michael Prest should not be forced to hand over assets totalling £17.5m to his former wife.
In November this year he will represent British Asian businessman and owner of the Radisson Edwardian hotel empire Jasminder Singh, who is being sued by his father for going against Hindu tradition by not sharing his fortune with his family.
