Education CV
Called to the Bar in England & Wales, Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia (as a principal), Jacob is a full TEP member of STEP specialising in contentious chancery matters, and advising across commonwealth jurisdictions. He acts and consults on matters concerning constructive and breach of trust, complex fraud, equitable remedies, trustee duties, tracing and freezing, risk management and corporate governance, Proceeds of Crime Act, and unexplained wealth orders. He holds UK security clearance. Having lectured and practiced in the Channel Islands he is experienced in a variety of offshore commercial and trust practice and on Hague Convention matters.
His PhD focuses on Constructive Trusts, conscience, and the nature of the Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. Jacob is an independent consultant and also a partner at an award winning ethical law firm, he can be contacted professionally via director@meagherconsultancy.com and jacob.meagher@aria-grace.com
A former Legal and Policy Advisor at the New Zealand Law Commission he moved back to the UK where he is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Brighton.
BL King's Inns, LLB(Hons)(First) Well, LLM Abdn, MBA UCL, AdvDipB&F, PDipB&F LIBF, PGCE HE LSE, DipCB, AKC
Professional Memberships and Qualifications
FRSA - Fellow, Royal Society of Arts
TEP - Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners
Ch MCSI - Chartered Member, Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
CFE - Certified Fraud Examiner, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners
SFHEA - Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy
FSALS - Fellow, Society for Advanced Legal Studies
CMgr FCMI - Chartered Fellow, Chartered Management Institute
FICA - Fellow, International Compliance Association
CQP MCQI - Chartered Member, Chartered Quality Institute
FGP - Certified Governance Practitioner Full Member, Fellow of The Association of Corporate Governance Practitioners
Ch ALIBF - Chartered Associate, London Institute of Banking and Finance
AKC - Associate of King's College London
Ch MCBI - Chartered Banker, Chartered Banker Institute
MCIArb - Member of the Charteted Institute of Arbitrators
LIB - Licentiate of the Institute or Bankers, University College Dublin
FRSPH - Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health
Admissions
Barrister of England and Wales, Middle Temple
Barrister at Law, The Bar of Ireland, King's Inns
Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales (non practicing)
Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia
Solicitor of the High Court of Australia
Barrister of the High Court of New Zealand
PhD Candidate in Law, University of Cambridge (2016 -)
- Sir Roy Goode Foundation Scholarship in International Comparative Commercial Law
- 2020 Association of Certified Fraud Examiners Ritchie-Jennings Memorial Scholarship
- Charlie Bayne Memorial Travel Award
- Yorke Grant
- Squire Grant
Barrister Partner, Aria Grace Law (2020-)
https://www.aria-grace.com/team
Research Associate, Cambridge Centre for Business and Law (2021-)
Senior Lecturer, Bournemouth University (2020-)
LPC, Business and Commercial Law
Lecturer in Law, University of Brighton (2020-)
Senior Visiting Lecturer, Institute of Law Jersey, University of London (2018-)
Commercial Law; Law of Equity and Trusts
Teaching Fellow, UCL Faculty of Law (2019-)
SCR Member & Examiner
- Property II Land Law and The Law of Trusts
- Property I Land Law
https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=JMEAG58
Guest Teacher, LSE Department of Law (2019-)
SCR Member & Examiner
- Property II Land Law and The Law of Trusts
Litigation Associate, Mourant Ozannes Guernsey (PhD Sabbatical, March - November 2018)
- I specialised in the use of constructive trusts and equitable remedies in commercial disputes.
- I advised on various equitable applications crosscutting the Trusts (Guernsey) Law 2007 and commercial arena including; Re-Beddoes, Hastings-Bass, Public Trustee v Cooper, and Hague Convention applications.
Visiting Lecturer, King's College London (2017-18 Academic year)
- Equity and Trusts
- Law of Property
- Law of Tort
Associate Tutor, University of East Anglia, Faculty of Law (2016)
- Law Reform in the 21st Century
Legal and Policy Advisor, New Zealand Law Commission (2015-16)
- "Understanding Family Violence: Reforming the criminal law relating to homicide" (NZLC R139)
- Clerk to the Hon Sir Grant Hammond, and the Hon Sir Douglas White, QC.
Tutor, School of Government and Commercial Law, Victoria University of Wellington (2014-15)
- Legal Environment of Business
- Law of Organisations
- Law of Special Contracts
Fields of research
This is controversial research, and it questions the core meanings of hitherto ‘base’ concepts and foundational terms in Equity. What do practitioners and academics mean by ‘beneficiary’ and ‘equitable estate’ and ‘held on trust’? When subject to scrutiny these terms prove to be part of an amorphous mass of language which obfuscates the ‘intent’ of the Chancery Jurisdiction (Equity), and the practical workings of the law regarding settled property rights. It is the Constructive Trust which is at the core of Equity (some might suggest irreducibly so) and which also gives choate meaning to its’ terms of art.
I argue that theory should move on from a Birksian categories-based approach to Constructive Trust as used by Liew, Mitchell, Oakley, et al., which identifies no central doctrine or unifying principle but only instances of occurrence. My thesis is that by imbuing the CT with settled definitions of foundational Equity precepts – shorn of mystical ‘equity is like smooth jazz’ idiosyncrasies – will a clear doctrine of CT be visible, and that doctrine is founded clearly in the declaratory nature of the judgment at hand. The CT arises by operation of Equity, but it only exits (either sus sponte or quia timet) when declared by law.
A New Understanding of Constructive Trust
Summary
If the question once was ‘what is the law of CT?’ that time has long since passed and an inquiry from that perspective is fruitless; the CT now an amorphous mass modified throughout four jurisdictions ostensibly achieving the same purpose.[1] That purpose is often oversimplified to the administration and balance of property rights writ fairness and justice, versus certainty and predictability. I argue its purpose goes far deeper, harking to the balance struck between recognition of equitable rights in Chancery and common law rights at Law.[2] CT jurisprudence and their use by practitioners and judiciary has become so disunited from its historical origins that CT was described at the International Trust Litigation Conference as “somewhere between a trust and a catchphrase”,[3] albeit one with hefty proprietary consequence and less a throwaway line. The CT of the 18th and 19th centaury was, surprisingly predictable to plead at Chancery, and a right at Equity with clearly definable bounds.[4] Texts of that era did not contain the uncertainty of this generations Equity commentary or case law.[5] Wholesale revision is needed.
[1] G. Virgo, “The Genetically Modified Constructive Trust” (2016) CJCCL 2(2) 579; specifically, Australia, New Zealand, England, and Canada. Although my thesis only focuses on the former three.
[2] See Lord Denning in Central London Property Trust Ltd v. High Trees House Ltd [1947] 1KB 130; contrast with the approach of Mackinnon LJ in Salisbury (Marquess) v. Gilmore [1942] 2KB 38 in following Jorden v. Money [1845] 5HL Cas 185; P.J. Millett “Equity – the Road ahead” (1995/96) 6 KCLJ 1, reprinted (1995) 9 Tru LI 35.
[3] Bruce Collins Q.C. Geneva 17 June 2014: Trust & Trustees 20(10) 1055.
[4]Anonymous, A Manual of Equity Jurisprudence, as Administered in England, founded on the “Commentaries of Joseph Story”, and comprising a numerous collection of points constantly occurring in “The General Practice of a Solicitor by Josiah W. Smith” (London: V. and R. Stevens and G. S. Norton, 1845) 118.
[5] I have surveyed the original editions of Story, Snell, Lewin, online and in the rare books section and compiled a list of CT and implied trust definitions. Indicating where they diverge on matters fiduciary, conscience, estate etc.
Supervisors
Mr. Nick McBride
Representative Publications
“Review: Y.K. Liew’s Rationalising Constructive Trusts” (2018) KLJ 29(2)
“Review: A. Nair Claims to Traceable Proceeds” (2018) Trust & Trustees 27(3)
“(Re-Defining) The Trust of the Specifically Enforceable Contract of Sale? The Vendor Purchaser Constructive Trust” (2018) Trust & Trustees 24(3) 266-297
“Common Law Courts as Regulators, an exposition: The Judiciary as a Regulatory Mechanism” (2017) Journal of Comparative Law 12(1) 108-147
"Some mistakes are meant to be fixed: a return to a measure of predictability in Guernsey Hastings-Bass orders" (2018) Mourant Ozannes Update 1 April
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