Emily McKechnie

Practice Overview

Recommended in Chambers & Partners and Legal 500.

Emily regularly represents clients in interlocutory and final applications, as well as at trial and on appeal. She is frequently instructed as junior to Queen’s Counsel within and outside Chambers, as well as on her own account.

Emily is a highly regarded commercial chancery lawyer with a comprehensive background specialising in commercial disputes, trusts, pensions, company and insolvency and professional liability.

Commercial disputes and business

Extensive experience acting in a range of commercial and business disputes, including:

• Fraud
• Complex contracts
• Confidential information
• Shareholder disputes
• Directors’ liability
• Partnerships and LLPs
• Insolvency and administration
• Arbitration

Emily’s practice encompasses legal developments involving:

• Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin etc.)
• Blockchain
• Cyber fraud
• Financial events (2008 banking crisis; 2020 Coronavirus Covid-19 etc.)

Trusts

Expertise includes:

• Contentious trusts
• Breach of fiduciary duties
• Dishonesty
• Part 8 claims for directions
• Sham trusts
• Probate and estates
• Constructive, resulting and implied trusts
• Proprietary estoppel

Pensions

Emily has extensive knowledge of pensions matters, including:

• Trusts, powers and fiduciary obligations
• Part 8 claims for directions (acting for trustees, employers and representative beneficiaries)
• Professional liability, including administrators, legal advisers and trustees
• Pensions Regulator investigations
• Statutory implications
• Amendment restrictions
• Defective execution
• Equalisation
• Past underpayments, limitation and forfeiture
• Employer insolvency

Professional liability

Covering a range of professionals, including trustees, directors, accountants, financial advisors, solicitors, barristers, executors and administrators:

• Professional negligence
• Breach of fiduciary duties
• Dishonesty
• Financial misselling
• Regulatory investigations

Offshore

Emily has been instructed on disputes in the following jurisdictions:

• Asia – China; Hong Kong
• Americas – United States; Mexico; Grand Cayman; Bermuda
• Europe – Jersey; Guernsey; Switzerland; Cyprus
• Middle East – Dubai
• Africa – Nigeria
• Australasia – Australia; New Zealand 

Testimonials

Described in the directories and by clients as:

• “Extremely clever, commands respect from clients in meetings, and produces written work of an extremely high standard”
• “Fantastically clear analytical mind”
• “Adept at finding practical solutions around very difficult and complex issues”
• “Assiduous and able to translate complex ideas into simple propositions”
• “Very good at conveying things verbally in an understandable manner”