Gary Lanham

In a career now exceeding 45 years, Gary has dealt with all succession related matters great and small, advising individuals and families on their wills and estate planning. A leading estate and trust practitioner and one of a small group of specialists in Succession law accredited by the Queensland Law Society, Gary is also one of only three approved Estate Account Assessors available to be appointed by the Queensland Supreme Court. This regime, a re-write of part of Uniform Civil Procedure Rules, outsources assessment of deceased estate and trust accounts away from the Court Registry, to private, qualified solicitors, since 2012. He was the first person appointed under those changed rules to examine a set of estate accounts.

Gary has extensive Succession experience with conduct of:

• more than 150 Supreme Court cases relating to wills, estate administration and family provision;
• the first Queensland application to define the Court’s (then) new power to admit words to the will;
• the appeal to the Queensland Court of Appeal to (then) define the proper limits of step-child eligibility in Family Provision; and
• an application to establish and define the audit-like role of the Registrar in passing estate accounts for the purpose of assessing commission

Gary has drawn wills and enduring powers of attorney and acted for personal representatives in the administration of deceased estates on occasions numbering in the thousands.