Matthew Smith KC > Chambers of Michael Gibbon KC > London, England > Barrister Profile
Maitland Chambers Offices
Maitland Chambers
7 STONE BUILDINGS, LINCOLN'S INN
LONDON
WC2A 3SZ
England
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Matthew Smith KC
Position
Commercial chancery litigation, including company and insolvency questions, contractual and trust-related disputes. Particular interest in charity law. Matthew acted for the Independent Schools Council in their successful judicial review of the Commission’s public benefit guidance; he appeared in the poverty trusts references brought by the Attorney General; he acted for the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church in their appeal against the Commission’s refusal to register. Other notable cases have included acting for the Catholic adoption agencies in their appeals concerning the scope of the charitable exemption in the Equality Act 2010 and appearing for the Attorney-General in the litigation over the assets of the Wedgwood Museum. He has advised and acted for and against the Commission on a number of other matters. He has appeared in the Tribunal and in Court for charities, the Commission and the Attorney. He is a regular speaker at the Charity Law Association.
Career
Qualified 2001; Inner Temple.
Memberships
COMBAR, Chancery Bar Association and Charity Law Association.
Education
MA (Cantab) First Class, LLM (rules concerning charities and politics; the relationship in charity law between purposes and activities and the comparative state of the law in England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada).
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Insolvency
(2024 Silks)Ranked: Tier 1London Bar > Charities
(2024 Silks)Ranked: Tier 1Matthew Smith KC –Maitland Chambers ‘A star: astute, extremely knowledgeable, and very personable.’
‘Leading charity set‘ Maitland Chambers is home to a group of barristers with an excellent track record in handling high-profile charity cases. Michael Gibbon KC and Ted Loveday appeared for the appellants in Mermaids v Charity Commission and LGB Alliance, a challenge by the first charity of the regulator’s decision to register the second – the case explored issues of who has standing to challenge the commission’s decisions to register a charity. Andrew Westwood KC is regularly instructed by charity trustees and individual charities in a wide range of contentious and non-contentious work, and Matthew Smith KC is ‘an imaginative thinker and eloquent advocate – one of the strongest charity law barristers‘.