A potted guide to Jonathan Seitler QC

Henri May talks to a thoroughly modern barrister about his career shaping property law “I’ve got property in the blood”, Jonathan Seitler QC tells Estates Gazette. Without doubt he has a valid claim to have been the magazine’s youngest reader – since the tender age of six, Seitler enjoyed leafing through its glossy pages immersing himself in the images of buildings. Hailing from “a property family”, it is no surprise his professional life now involves the most high-profile real estate litigation and professional negligence cases. Despite his family involvement in the property world, Seitler’s life of interpreting and influencing the law did not fall into his lap. As a Manchester comprehensive schoolboy, his former head teacher positively discouraged his Oxbridge ambition, which only made him more determined. After studying at Oxford, a move into the tough world of London’s bar followed. With no contacts in his chosen field it was a difficult path to take. Getting a pupillage was as competitive as it remains today, but tenure was even more of a challenge. A chambers would take on eight or nine pupils with no pay and then employ only one or two when the training was complete. To support himself, Seitler worked in the evenings for Islington Council on a “men’s awareness” class, enlightening the participants on male issues around feminism. His hard work and grit paid off; he is now a silk based at Wilberforce Chambers and the only person to have won the Chambers and Partners Real Estate Silk of the Year three times (in 2007, 2010 and 2015). Property has not always been Seitler’s field. His fearsome reputation in court was honed during his 10 years as a criminal barrister. He used this time to acquire the “street-fighting skills” which he tries to import into the more genteel world he now inhabits. A modern bar? Seitler paints an archaic picture of his early years as a barrister. “A conference with a barrister involved going into his dusty, dark, dank and cramped book-lined room, sitting with your notebook on your knee and taking notes, while he, and it was always a he, sat behind a pile of books and simply read to you what his opinion on the point was, whereupon you left the room. Now, the conferences I have are modern, interactive, brainstorming and democratic,” he says. Trying to bring accessibility to the bar is something about which this QC is passionate. “When I joined the bar, it was regarded as above the tawdry reality of business and commerce. Now it’s not,” Seitler says. His set does everything it can, including the way it recruits, to be “a more modern, enlightened profession that is a proper part of a modern society”. Indeed, any visitor to his chambers is greeted with a light, airy space, with no dusty books in sight. A successful approach In purposely trying to change what is on offer to clients in disputes, Seitler describes himself as “just a seller of ideas… legal ideas”. He clearly relishes the challenges of his work, in particular “the ability to be responsive, accurate, flexible and imaginative”. Seitler also takes pride in being consistent in his advice. As long as the circumstances don’t change, his advice will stay the same. This avoids a potentially embarrassing situation for solicitors on the morning of a trial. On a personal level, he believes his “northern vowels” have been an advantage, along with his “stomach for a fight” and skill as an exceptional listener to tease the essential facts out of a case. “You have to go in very deep to get the tiny facts that will change the outcome. My philosophy of doing cases is think big, but see small,” he says. These big ideas have made Seitler a leader in his field and one of the silks that opponents fear most. As an affable interviewee it is easy to picture him in the co-operative parts of the job, seeing clients and, as he puts it, “plotting a route to victory”. Harder to imagine is his flip to an aggressive cross-examiner. But flip he does, clearly with ease and pleasure, pointing out that normally in court “there is only one winner, and it’s important to make sure it’s your client”. Seitler’s caseload consists of work on assignment, lease renewals and development contracts – including disputes about whether developers have used reasonable endeavours – along with a stream of professional negligence work related to property professionals. In terms of changes over time, the content of his work has seen a decline in rent review issues, due to leases becoming shorter. However, this has been replaced by other new problems, including disputes arising from the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1985. He successfully represented the defendants in K/S Victoria Street v House of Fraser (Stores Management) Ltd and others [2011] EWCA Civ 904; [2011] 2 EGLR 11. This concerned assignment of a lease under the Act, the provisions of which he says are causing numerous problems in the industry. This Act, he explains, is capable of rendering assignments void “irrespective of what the parties wanted, and irrespective of whether they were trying to avoid the Act in the first place”. He adds: “This is particularly difficult when you have assignments between groups of companies, and some reform is needed to accommodate the need for property companies to assign within groups for the reasons that they need to do so.” Mediation When he is not participating in “war by civilised means”, Seitler also works as a property mediator, where he tries to help bring parties together and facilitate a third way. This process, he explains, is “intended to cut the risks of losing, rather than obtain the gains of winning”. The decision to mediate “will be based on the client’s attitude to risk in those particular circumstances”. However, in certain cases mediation will not be appropriate – for example, when there is a history of antagonism and ill-will. Although Seitler admits mediation can deliver safe, certain outcomes, in terms of the cost-effectiveness of this process he says: “It’s quite cost-effective to go to court and win.” Despite its advantages, Seitler can see a time when the property industry may have a backlash against mediation. “There are cases in which mediation just revolves around appeasing the nutcase, and sometimes people with strong legal cases find themselves pressured to settle because the other side, which has a weak case, is being unreasonable… and it may at some point be that not all cases need a mediator, some may need a judge.” Potted guides As if he wasn’t busy enough, Seitler has also been writing his popular Potted Guides for the Estates Gazette for the past year. In contrast to the rest of the Practice & Law section, they are not intended to be topical but instead summarise an area of law essential for a property professional. Readers enjoy the element of surprise to the topic selected each month and feedback has been positive, apart from the crushing disappointment some have suffered at being left out of the “leading practitioners” box. Seitler received a light-hearted tweet that a reader’s lifetime ambition was to be featured in that privileged few. However, for the avoidance of doubt, Seitler explains that the list is “meant to reflect who has been in the cases that are listed above”. The small boy who read Estates Gazette has grown up not only to be a regular fixture in the magazine, but to have an influence on who else shares the distinction of seeing their name in print. Background reading What might a young Jonathan Seitler have been reading in the summer of 1967, the year he turned six? Important issues featured in Estates Gazette included the following hot topics: “Large areas of glass in multi-storey office blocks result in uncomfortable working conditions,” said one article. The rent tribunal grappled with the meaning of “house” – one thorny issue that has yet to die away. “Going into Europe” addressed the rules of professional practice if Britain joined the Common Market. There was a stern warning from the Automobile Association on the effects of inadequate car-parking facilities near shopping centres, as a result of which “the social life of our towns will be in danger of decay”. Enoch Powell described offices as “the brain cells of the modern economy”, and called for “the right offices, for the right work, in the right place”. There were plans and debate surrounding a new “attractive” airport at Stansted. The rise of the radio mast: “There are so many proposals afoot for the construction of radio masts that it seems probable that some form of national control on where they are to be sited will have to be instituted.” And finally, the vital question of whether more bosses should share their offices with their secretaries, resulting in a 12% saving in total office space.