Joel Whale

Senior Associate

Qualifications: LLB/BlnSt, MBA Finance (with Excellence)

Practices

Joel specialises in estate litigation and disputes related to Wills, trusts and probate, and acts for a range of interested parties.

Joel also provides succession planning advice for high net worth individuals, businesses and family offices. This advice includes restructuring family assets, business succession, family trusts and managing potential disputes.

Drawing on over 15 years of experience, Joel has advised on complex wealth management, trust matters and equity disputes, as a litigation lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright and as a lawyer at Blake Dawson, where he commenced his career.

Experience

  • Advising high net worth individuals in relation to family trust and estate challenges, including family provision claims in the Supreme Court.
  • Advising on probate disputes in the Supreme Court involving Will rectification, testamentary capacity, and knowledge and approval claims.
  • Advising on the removal of executors, applications for Court appointed administrators, and grants involving lost Wills.
  • Advising a partnership on a trustee claim in relation to a high value trust which owed investors approximately $130 million.
  • Advising a trustee in defence of Federal Court proceedings in relation to withholding interest accrued on beneficiary funds.
  • Advising a high net worth individual in relation to a trust dispute involving the sale proceeds of a commercial property for $132 million.
  • Advising a professional advisor in relation to a multiparty dispute involving the tax liability of a high net worth individual.
  • Advising on buy/sell agreements including using life insurance proceeds to fund equity.

Awards and recognition

Private Client Global Elite Directory 2023
Rising Leader in Australia

Professional Membership

  • Law Society of New South Wales
  • High Court Register of Practitioners
  • Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP)

Latest thinking

Private Clients | 23 Feb 2024

How to obtain executor commission?

Executors’ commission involves an executor of a Will obtaining remuneration for the administration of a deceased’s estate.