Christopher Stead
Call: 2008
- University of Leeds – Law (LLB) – First Class
- BPP Law School (Leeds), BVC – Outstanding (highest in year)
- Baron Dr Ver Heyden Lancey Prize (Middle Temple)
- Chancery Bar Association
- PIBA
Christopher has a young family, so much leisure time is happily spent watching them grow up. He likes regular weight training at the gym, which sometimes conflicts with a recently discovered gift of baking.
Hailing from south Wales, he has an obligatory love of rugby, and music, spending much of his youth playing the trombone in a variety of excellent ensembles; although he does not play much anymore, he still enjoys music of all sorts, and listens to it live whenever he can.
Instructing Christopher Stead
Would you like to know more?
If you require help or advice please contact our clerking team.
Call +44 (0)20 7353 0711 or email clerks@pumpcourtchambers.com.
Christopher is a civil practitioner with particular expertise in business, property, and probate matters, along with experience in personal injury litigation. He has a thriving court practice alongside a busy paperwork load, and is experienced at advising on, drafting, and appearing in proceedings before the County Court, First Tier Tribunal, and High Court.
Originally, Christopher practised as a tenant in the business and property team at Kings Chambers (Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham), having undertaken pupillage with Mark Harper KC and Andrew Latimer. He joined Chambers after a career break to be ordained in the Church of England and to lecture in doctrine and church history, where he was engaged in research and writing alongside teaching university students and examining.
Christopher often speaks at seminars for professional clients across the areas of business, property, and probate law, as well as co-hosting the Pump Court Civil Law Podcast with Louisa Simpson and Timothy Salisbury.
Christopher can provide advice, drafting services, and advocacy, at all levels and stages of litigation, as well as assisting through ADR processes such as mediation. He is able to approach instructions for court or advising and drafting with the client’s aims and objectives in mind to be able achieve what matters most to them. He is thorough and precise in preparation, and clients value and appreciate his ability to get to the heart of the issues involved.
Legal Services
Christopher is the Deputy Head of the Commercial team within chambers. His experience and knowledge across the range of commercial matters allows him to advise on, and appear in, cases involving multi-faceted issues across the commercial spectrum.
He undertakes work in a range of commercial disputes, and has had experience of many of the usual issues involved in connection with such litigation, including contractual formation and interpretation, franchise agreements and post-termination restrictive covenants, sale of goods and supply of services, banking and finance, guarantees, all in addition to aspects related to civil procedure. He has represented major companies as well as smaller traders and individuals, and he has appeared at all stages of proceedings, as well as being involved from the very beginning of a party’s involvement in the dispute resolution process.
Recent cases by way of example include assisting leading counsel in advising on and drafting pleadings for a complex high-value contractual dispute centring around issues of agency and authority; assisting leading counsel in advising on conflict of laws and anti-suit injunctions; advising on a six-figure construction dispute; advising on and drafting for a six figure guarantee dispute; and he has drafted pleadings for injunctions restraining breach of covenants and retention of documents.
Christopher’s work in commercial litigation has of course included issues arising in relation to director’s duties and shareholder’s rights, and he has advised on partnership disputes. He is happy to receive instructions in all matters relating to company and partnership law.
Christopher has also dealt with many aspects of personal and corporate insolvency litigation. He has acted for creditors and companies in winding-up proceedings (both in the winding up list and in contested cases, including those involving injunctions); he has acted for and advised creditors in high value statutory demand and bankruptcy petition cases, and has appeared for insolvency practitioners.
Christopher understands the need to bring a sense of commercial pragmatism to each case, and is sensitive to what it is that the client wants and is best served in obtaining.
Christopher has experience of various forms of property claims, both commercial and residential, and accepts instructions across the whole spectrum of property litigation. He speaks on matters related to property law for professional clients, including a recent seminar on developments in the law of nuisance.
In real property cases, he has acted, advised, and drafted in relation to boundary disputes, rights of way, nuisance claims, and others, and has handled complex issues of adverse possession and proprietary estoppel. He has also been instructed in TOLATA proceedings and other cases involving the establishment of interests in land.
He has advised and acted for landlords in residential possession proceedings (including as against trespassers), and is able to handle the various and complex issues that arise under the different routes to possession. He has successfully acted for landlords in commercial leasehold claims, including renewal of business tenancy, as well as forfeiture claims in long leasehold disputes. He has advised on leasehold enfranchisement, and has appeared successfully in residential service charge proceedings. He has successfully represented clients in proceedings in the First Tier Property tribunal. He is regularly instructed in dilapidations/disrepair claims, both on behalf of landlords and tenants, and in commercial and residential matters.
Christopher accepts instructions in all matters relating to personal injury. He has extensive experience of credit hire claims, and successfully deploys arguments for both claimants and defendants in such cases, including the dismissal of a claim on the basis of need, and resisting reductions in the period of hire.
He regularly appears in liability trials, and has successfully opposed applications for findings of fundamental dishonesty in road traffic accident claims. He has appeared in occupier’s liability proceedings, he has advised on claims involving strict liability, and has been involved in industrial disease work. He is willing to take instructions for both Claimants and Defendants at all levels of personal injury litigation.
Christopher represents clients in interim applications in personal injury cases, including strike out, relief from sanctions, directions and allocation hearings, stage three MOJ portal hearings, and others.
Christopher regularly receives instructions in probate and inheritance matters, and is involved in producing and presenting training sessions on various matters relating to contentious probate and inheritance claims. He has advised on a number of different issues relating to the administration of estates and distribution, obtaining information about testamentary documents, rectification of wills, and executors’ duties and powers. He also regularly acts on behalf of parties in contested probate cases and in claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
He has recently been involved in several cases (and some are ongoing) in which the validity of wills face challenge on grounds of capacity, want of knowledge and approval, undue influence, and fraudulent calumny. He has also appeared successfully for applicants seeking permission to bring a 1975 Act claim out of time. Christopher can assist from the very early stages in finding the most effective way of pursuing or defending a claim against an estate.
He is able to provide advice, draft pleadings, and appear as an advocate in contentious probate and family provision proceedings, as well as advise on procedural matters and strategy in achieving the best outcome for his clients. His knowledge in the law, alongside his experience in pastoral work, allows him to bring both understanding and empathy to clients who are often facing one of the most difficult and trying times in their life, and to work with them to find the best resolution.
- University of Leeds – Law (LLB) – First Class
- BPP Law School (Leeds), BVC – Outstanding (highest in year)
- Baron Dr Ver Heyden Lancey Prize (Middle Temple)
- Chancery Bar Association
- PIBA
Christopher has a young family, so much leisure time is happily spent watching them grow up. He likes regular weight training at the gym, which sometimes conflicts with a recently discovered gift of baking.
Hailing from south Wales, he has an obligatory love of rugby, and music, spending much of his youth playing the trombone in a variety of excellent ensembles; although he does not play much anymore, he still enjoys music of all sorts, and listens to it live whenever he can.
Instructing Christopher Stead
Would you like to know more?
If you require help or advice please contact our clerking team.
Call +44 (0)20 7353 0711 or email clerks@pumpcourtchambers.com.
