Spear’s Review

Dean Ryan is a legal director at Payne Hicks Beach, having joined from Taylor Wessing in 2016. Working within the firm’s private client department, he advises UHNWs – including billionaires – on a range of tax, trust, estate and succession planning matters.

‘I'm a private client and wealth lawyer,’ he says. ‘It's a really broad area of law and with that, comes the need to adapt to different types of clients with different demands and expectations of their lawyers.’

Ryan says he works with clients in a direct fashion, providing advice and progressing structuring work on probate, succession planning, landed estates, charity law and trusts, and this often develops into longstanding relationships. ‘Clients need to know you're on their side and that you know what you're talking about. They need to know they can call you up at any time and you'll recall their situation, their details and everything about them. That's what they expect at this level.’