Paul Mertens
Paul Mertens has a busy civil and family practice and regularly appears in trials across a range of tribunals, from the High Court and County Court to the Employment Tribunal and First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber). Paul’s background in company secretarial and in-house legal work has given him a strong commercial insight and he prides himself on providing pragmatic commercial advice to his clients.
Paul has significant experience of dealing with disputes concerning leasehold and freehold properties. Recent work has included a case concerning the acquisition of an easement by prescription, a High Court claim involving constructive trusts over two properties in which he appeared for the successful applicant, and a claim involving alleged trusts over eight properties in Wiltshire, which he successfully defeated. Paul finds the crossover between his property work and his family finance practice engaging. He is frequently instructed in cohabitation claims under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996.
Paul is Pump Court Chambers’ Data Protection Officer and he has provided training on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 to a range of organisations, including government departments and public inquiries / statutory reviews.
Since joining the Bar, Paul has been instructed in a number of cases by the Government Legal Department. In 2018, he was appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Special Advocates.