Marcus Yorke-Long

Spear’s Review

After 15 years in finance and wealth management, Marcus Yorke-Long moved to Charles Russell Speechlys in 2023 to head up the law firm’s new private office.

The private office team aims to realise the ‘private and business aspirations of new and existing clients’ by gaining a deep understanding of their requirements and connecting them with the firm’s most suitable specialist lawyers for each piece of work or advice.

Lord Andrew Hay, former global head of residential property at Knight Frank, is chairman of the private office. Yorke-Long and Hay are joined by Camilla Sadler, who is the fifth generation of the Russell family to work at the firm.

During a more than 12-year spell at Barclays, Yorke-Long handled some of the bank’s most important relationships with UHNWs and family offices, and he will no doubt draw from this highly relevant experience in his current role. He previously told Spear’s his overarching duty at the bank was to deliver ‘the wider Barclays franchise to families who don’t want a fragmented model that doesn’t look at the overall family structure’.

Adviser Profile

For over 15 years Marcus has enjoyed covering Family Office and UHNW clients with significant interests and exposures that typically span multiple economic sectors and geographies. His strength lies in building a deep understanding of his client’s strategic objectives and then delivering both coordinated service and optimal value. 

Marcus joined Charles Russell Speechlys in 2023 to lead the Private Office, a pioneering and unique proposition in the legal sector. In this role, Marcus and his team have responsibility for new and existing key client relationships and for driving the Firm’s ambition to be the leading international law firm focused on private capital.

‘The Private Office harnesses the Firm’s world-class legal and professional specialists across traditional private client advisory work and also transactional and contentious work, with a specific focus on private capital. We help to bring the collective wisdom of our whole Firm into play, to the benefit of our clients, reinforced by outstanding and proactive client service.’ 

Marcus’ team invest their time with the Firm’s key clients free of charge, and take pride in being thoughtful, proactive, bringing people together and going beyond the law. To the Firm’s clients, the Private Office’s adoption of the ‘single lens coverage’ approach differentiates the Firm and aligns it with their most pressing and intergenerational ambitions. 

Marcus joined the Firm after spending the last 13 years at Barclays Bank PLC in a cross-bank coverage role for significant single family office clients. Earlier on in his career Marcus worked in a UK small/mid cap corporate finance team, a strategic entrepreneurial venture and an independent Swiss private bank. Marcus lives in Hampshire with his young family. The daily commute into London lends itself to a wide variety of podcasts, so he’s always happy to make or receive a recommendation!