Paul Jarvis

Barrister

Year of Call

2001

Profile

Paul is ranked in Chambers UK and the Legal 500 across four practice areas: Crime, Fraud, Proceeds of Crime, and Administrative Law & Human Rights.

Chambers UK, 2024

Paul Jarvis is an excellent barrister who is extremely well versed in the law and an accomplished advocate.” (Crime)

He is a true expert at defending sexual offences and a master of tactical decision making.” (Crime)

He’s a very intelligent lawyer with the personal touch, and very relaxed and effective in his manner as an advocate.” (Crime)

He has the confidence and trust of the court, and judges go to him for issues and questions. You only get that by having a demonstrably comprehensive knowledge of complex areas.” (POCA & Asset Forfeiture)

Paul Jarvis has a great way with clients and is a formidable force in court.” (POCA & Asset Forfeiture)

Legal 500, 2024

‘Paul is a highly respected practitioner who thinks with pure clarity. He is a fountain of knowledge and knows the law inside out. He is a true expert in defending sexual offences and is a master of tactical decision making. He is silk quality and clients are in total awe of him.’ (Crime)

‘Paul is an exceptional lawyer with an outstanding command of the law. He possesses the remarkable ability to simplify complex legal concepts for his clients and he maintains a composed and unruffled demeanour within the courtroom, displaying a remarkable level of professionalism which resonates exceptionally well with judges and juries alike.’ (Fraud)

He combines an analytical eye with keen focus’ (Administrative Law & Human Rights)

Paul is Senior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court, appointed by the Attorney General to prosecute the most serious offences including murder and terrorism. In that role Paul accepts instructions from all divisions of the Crown Prosecution Service and from the Serious Fraud Office and the Financial Conduct Authority.

Alongside prosecuting, Paul maintains a busy private defence practice, mainly in the areas of corporate and financial crime, cybercrime, serious sexual offending and motoring offences, where his expertise is sought at all stages of proceedings.

Paul has particular expertise with regards to the proceeds of crime and judicial review.  He also has a sizeable appellate practice.  In the last few years he has appeared as sole junior counsel in over one hundred cases before the Court of Appeal.

Paul is the joint editor of Millington & Sutherland Williams on the Proceeds of Crime, and Kingsley Napley & 6KBW College Hill: Serious Fraud, Investigation & Trial, and a contributor to Blackstones’ Criminal Practice and Taylor on Appeals. He is a case commentator for Lloyd’s Law Reports: Financial Crime, and a regular contributor to the Criminal Law Review and Archbold Review.

Here is a selection of quotes about Paul from previous editions of the legal directories:

  • “Paul is a superb lawyer with a tremendous grasp of the law and an ability to break it down into manageable chunks for his clients. He is one of the very best treasury counsel and unsurprisingly hugely sought after
  • A barrister with excellent drafting skills, who has a high level of experience and knowledge within this sector. In court he is a calming and measured presence
  • Paul is an exceptionally bright barrister who appears to have the answer to every legal issue at his fingertips
  • With a great courtroom presence, Paul is balanced in his approach and excellent at winning a tribunal over
  • Paul knows the law inside out and is well prepared and able to deal with clients
  • “Paul has a great legal mind, focus and great attention to detail. He has a commitment no matter what kind of case and has great client care”
  • “Paul is a barrister at the very top of his game, combining impressive intellect with sound tactical judgement. He is also very good at explaining issues clearly to clients and putting them at ease”
  • “Very good at reassuring clients when dealing with cases that involve this difficult and technical area of the law”
  • “He is great on paper and a phenomenal advocate”
  •  He is super bright on the law and has a fantastic presence in court”
  • “He deals with complex cases with ease”
  • “Paul is very switched-on and incredibly calm and re-assuring”
  • “A very able and skilled advocate who can make his point clearly and succinctly to both judge and jury”
  • “Helpful, clear and good to deal with”
  • “A charming man who is very calm and delightful to work with”
  • “He has amazing client care skills and a very high success rate”
  • “A genius. He’s calm and quietly spoken but so bright and clever”
  • “A highly intelligent thinker. He’s very good at analysing the legislation and case law”
  • “He has encyclopedic knowledge and is very quick on his feet”
  • “Incredibly astute with excellent drafting and negotiating skills”
  • “Takes a no-nonsense approach”
  • “He has a stellar reputation”
  • “A brilliant tactician, he can always see the landscape and navigates around it splendidly in the best interests of his clients”
  • “He is fiercely intelligent, and makes well thought-out submissions in a calm and measured way”
  • “His drafting skills are second to none”
  • “He is quite mild-mannered but in court he turns into a dragon and proves an excellent advocate”
  • “A phenomenally intelligent advocate”
  • “A junior who stays unruffled in court”
  • “Erudite, amicable and level-headed”
  • “A junior who stays unruffled in court”
  • “Paul has a very straightforward manner and comes over incredibly well in court – both with judges and juries. He always demonstrates a first-class understanding of the law, and prepares meticulously”
  • “Hard-working, approachable and tenacious, he’s a very astute man.”
  • “He’s extremely bright and devastatingly effective, and adopts a calm manner at all times. He is always at ease with the tribunal”.
  • “A good academic lawyer who has an astute tactical brain. He has a good court persona; he is able to keep calm and deal with everything thrown at him”.
  • “A junior who will go far”

Expertise

  • Senior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court
  • Recorder (part-time Circuit Judge)
  • Fellow Commoner, Downing College, Cambridge
  • Advisory Board, Cambridge Centre for Criminal Justice
  • Supervisor in law, University of Cambridge
  • Stipendiary lecturer in law, University of Oxford
  • Criminal Procedure Rule Committee
  • Criminal Law Reform Now Network Committee
  • Criminal Bar Association Law Reform Working Group
  • Co-Chair, Criminal Bar Association Education Committee
  • Legal Adviser to the CPS London Hate Crime Local Scrutiny Panel
  • South-Eastern Circuit Lead Facilitator for Vulnerable Witness Training
  • Pupillage Foundation Scheme Mentor, Lincoln’s Inn
  • Mentor for The Kalisher Trust
  • Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
  • Selden Society
  • Criminal Bar Association
  • Proceeds of Crime Lawyers’ Association
  • Fraud Lawyers’ Association
  • Private Prosecutors’ Association

Editorships:

  • Co-Editor Millington & Sutherland Williams on the Proceeds of Crime, 6th edition, OUP, 2023
  • Co-Editor, Kingsley Napley and 6KBW: Serious Fraud, Investigation and Trial, Lexis Nexis, 2023
  • Co-Editor, Disclosure in Criminal Proceedings, 2nd edition, OUP, forthcoming

Chapter contributions:

  • ‘Blackstone’s Criminal Practice’, OUP
  • ‘Taylor on Appeals’, 3rd edition, OUP
  • ‘‘EU Law in Criminal Practice’, OUP
  • ‘Private Prosecutions as a Commercial Remedy’ (with Dr Matthew Dyson), in ‘Commercial Remedies: Resolving Controversies’, CUP (2018)
  • ‘Secret Evidence in Criminal Proceedings’, Max Planck Institute (2022)
  • ‘Criminal Law Reform Now, Volume 2: Proposals & Critique’, Hart, (2024)

Published Articles:

West Law Insight: criminal procedure

West Law Insight: complicity and accessorial liability

West Law Insight: justification and excuse

West Law Insight: attempts

 

‘The Use and Abuse of Conspiracy’ [2014] Crim LR 261

‘Conspiracy to Defraud’ [2014] Crim LR 738

‘Say Hello to the CrimBo’, Blackstone’s Quarterly, 2014

‘The New Criminal Behavior Order’ [2015] Crim LR 278

‘50 years of making law better’, Counsel, May 2015, pp.30-32.

‘Evans: A Postscript’ [2015] Crim LR 704

‘Participating in Organised Crime Groups’ [2015] Crim LR 766

‘The Future of Human Rights in Criminal Law’ Blackstone’s Quarterly, 2016

Letter to the Editor [2016] Crim LR 41

‘Conspiring with Oneself’, Arch Rev 2017, 9, 7 – 9

‘Poison Ivey or Herbal Tea?’ 2018 LQR 198 – 203

‘The Surprising Second Life of Doli Incapax’, Arch Rev 2018, 3, 7 – 9

‘Sentencing Public Disorder offences’, Blackstones’ Quarterly, 2018

‘The Timing of Consent’ [2019] Crim LR 394 – 410

‘Mens rea and statutory construction’, Arch Rev 2019, 2, 6 – 9

‘A touch too far?’, Arch Rev 2020, 1, 4 – 6

‘Not exclusively a family affair’, Arch Rev 2020, 7, 6 – 9.

‘Do inconsistent defences matter?’, Arch Rev 2021, 2, 7 – 10

‘A likely story’, Arch Rev 2021, 6, 8 – 9

‘A sad indictment’, Arch Rev 2021, 10, 4 – 5

‘The old and the young’, Arch Rev 2022, 3, 4 – 8

‘Abusing processes and staying proceedings’, Arch Rev 2022, 8, 4 – 6

‘Deception, mistake and sexual consent: Criminal Law Reform Now Network’, Arch Rev 2022, 10, 8 -10.

‘A gap in the law: sexual activity and deception’, Counsel, 2023, July, 38 – 39

Case Commentaries:

R v Bina [2015] Crim LR 287

R v CW & MM [2015] Crim LR 806

Love v National Crime Agency [2016] Lloyds Re FC 424

R v Welsh [2016] Crim LR 43

R v Gowans; R v Hillman [2016] Crim LR 206

R v Walker [2016] Crim LR 848

R (Soma Oil & Gas Ltd) v Director of the SFO [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC 18

R v Lunn [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC 139

Attorney General v Knowles [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC 225

R v M; R v C; R v T [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC 513

Riley v Crown Prosecution Service [2017] Crim LR 222

R v Pritchard [2017] Lloyd’s Rep FC 590

Ivashchenko v Russia (App No. 61064/10) [2018] Lloyd’s Rep FC 301

R v Lane & Letts [2018] Lloyd’s Rep FC 438

Scholtz & Others v The State [2019] Lloyd’s Rep FC 1

R v D [2019] Lloyd’s Rep FC 276

Hotel Portfolio II Ltd v SMA Investment Holdings [2019] Lloyd’s Rep FC 495

R v Reynolds [2020] Lloyd’s Rep FC 73

PCP Capital Partners v Barclays Bank [2020] Lloyd’s Rep FC 460

R (Wollenberg) v The Crown Court at Southwark [2020] Lloyd’s Rep FC 503

OM v Bulgaria [2021] Lloyd’s Rep FC 258

Asif v Ditta [2021] Lloyd’s Rep FC 529

NCA v Javanshir [2022] Lloyd’s Rep FC 293

R v Andrewes [2023] Lloyd’s Rep FC 35

Lectures

‘Money Laundering Offences’, to the NCA in 2013.

‘Criminal Defences’, to Bindmans LLP in 2014

‘Pension Liberation Fraud’, to Pitmans LLP in 2014

‘Conspiracy’, to the SFO and the FCA in 2014.

‘Proceeds of Crime Update’, to POCLA and the CPS POCA Unit in 2014.

‘International Asset Forfeiture’ to the FCO in Mauritius in 2014.

‘Organised Crime’, CBA Conference in 2015

‘Aspects of Disciplinary Proceedings’, to Kingsley Napley in 2015

‘MLA in Confiscation Proceedings’ to Kingsley Napley in 2016

‘Consent’, Assize Seminar Event, Oxford, 2017

‘Private Prosecutions’ to Criminal Law Reform Now, UCL, 2018

‘Why is Criminal Procedure So Special?’ at the University of Oxford, annually for undergraduates since 2019 for post-graduates since 2021.

‘Proceeds of Crime Update’ to Russell-Cooke & Hodge, Jones & Allen, 2021

‘Is it time to call time on unsafe acquittals?’, Assize Seminar, Oxford, 2022

‘Third party representations in criminal trials’, Law Commission event, 2023

University of Cambridge, MA / Law.

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Notable cases

Related news

20 February

Paul Jarvis to be appointed Senior Treasury Counsel

Chambers would like to congratulate Paul Jarvis on his appointment by the Attorney General as Senior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court. We are delighted to announce that as of the 1st...

9 August

Taylor on Criminal Appeals, 3rd edition

The third edition of Taylor on Criminal Appeals has been published by Oxford University Press.  Paul Jarvis and Professor David Ormerod QC wrote Chapter 8 on prosecution appeals under the Criminal...