Mark Blackett-Ord

"a determined cross examiner who has a keen eye for spotting the weak arguments of opposing counsel"

Chambers UK 2011

Practice

Mark Blackett-Ord is an advisor, arbitrator and advocate experienced in trusts, partnership, professional negligence, ecclesiastical law and general Chancery litigation.

He is a leading authority on the law of partnership including venture capital funds and other limited partnerships and LLPs. His “encyclopedic knowledge and crisp no-nonsense approach “ is noted in the directories. He has appeared in more recent partnership cases in the High Court and Court of Appeal than any other English counsel.

He has appeared in a number of notable cases in the area of Property, Company Law and Probate. He advises on trusts including family provision and  proprietary estoppel and acts in cases of professional negligence relating to solicitors, barristers, accountants, surveyors, brokers, architects and other professionals. He often accepts and advises in difficult and abstruse cases, for instance matters relating to clubs, corpses and unorthodox personal relationships.

Professional Reputation

Mark is recommended by Chambers UK, Legal Experts and The Legal 500. Chambers UK in 2009 notes his “encyclopedic knowledge and crisp no-nonsense approach” and calls him a “highly urbane and tremendously effective barrister… an exceptional cross-examiner whom clients and peers always take very seriously.”

Notable Cases

Partnership

• Manning v English (2010) EWHC 153 (Ch) (limitation period for a dissolution claim)
• Hopton v Miller (2010) EWHC 2732 (effect of a debarring order on a partnership claim)
• Tann v Herrington [2009] EWHC 445 (Ch) (duty of care of one partner to another)
• Hopper v Hopper [2008] EWCA Civ 1417 (rules as to post-dissolution profit sharing)
• Sandhu v Gill [2006] Ch 456 CA (operation of the retirement provisions of the Partnership Act 1890)
• M Young Legal v Zahid [2006] 1 WLR 2562 CA. (meaning of partner)

Property, Company Law and Probate

• Mary Gray Ritchie deceased [2009] EWHC 809 (will overturned where testatrix deluded).
• Olins v Walters [2009] (Ch 212) (CA) (clarification of the law on mutual wills).
• Mehra v Aras (HH Judge Marshall QC 26/11/08, Estates Gazette: the new law of overriding interests over registered land).
• Braymist v Wise Finance Co [2002] 2 AER 333 CA (unincorporated associations).
• Polly Peck Plc v Nadir [1992] The Times 30.7.92 CA (the width of world-wide Mareva injunctions).
• Roche v Sherrington [1982] 1 WLR 599 (the Opus Dei case)
• Regalian Securities v Ramsden [1981] 1 WLR 611 (House of Lords)

Trusts

• Hopper v Hopper [2008] EWHC 228 (proprietary estoppel claims against co-owners)
• Price v Williams-Wynn [2006] WTLR (rectification of a settlement)
• Murphy v Murphy [1999] 1WLR 282 (duty of disclosure of a settlor)
• Webb v Webb [1994] QB 696 (ECJ) and (1997) CA 8.7.97 (European Court of Justice: jurisdiction in cases of an English trust of foreign land)

Ecclesiastical Law

Mark is the Chancellor of Leicester Diocese and appeared for the successful appellant in the Court of Arches in Re St Peter's Draycott [2009] WLR (D) 105.

Professional Memberships

Mark is a member of the Association of Partnership Practitioners and of the Chancery Bar Association, ACTAPS, STEP and the Ecclesiastical Judges Association..  Mark sits as an arbitrator. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Chancellor of the Diocese of Leicester and a Bencher of Lincolns Inn.

Publications and Lecturing

He was the co-editor of 'Partnership' in the original Halsbury's Laws (4th Edition) and he is the editor of 'Partnerships and LLP's' in Atkins Court Forms. His book entitled Partnership (Butterworths) first published in 1997 is a definitive guide to the modern law of partnership. It appeared in its third edition in 2007 and Wilson LJ called it 'Mr Blackett-Ord's excellent book' at paragraph [31] in M. Young Legal v Zahid [2006] 1 WLR 2562.