Presenters

Geoffry Underwood, Barrister, Sixth Floor Selborne Wentworth Chambers
Geoffry Underwood is a barrister practising from Sixth Floor, Selborne Wentworth Chambers, 174 Phillip Street Sydney. He practises principally in the area of Equity, Estate and Family Provision advising and litigation. He has been involved in Estate Litigation on a regular basis for over 20 years. He has many interests outside the law including family, travel, golf and classical music.

John Armfield, Barrister & Mediator, Two Wentworth Chambers
John has been practicing at the NSW Bar for 44 years as counsel in wills and estates matters and related litigation.  He has long been recognised in Doyles Guide as a leading junior counsel in 2015, 2017-2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 as a pre-eminent and recommended leading wills and estates junior counsel.  His particular expertise spans family provision law, testamentary capacity, informal wills, estoppel in estate litigation and the rights of beneficiaries to obtain information in relation to the administration of trusts. Approachable as he is, his colleagues and members of the broader legal profession have come to rely on John’s guidance, counsel and assistance to resolve complex wills & estates matters. John is an accredited mediator.  He is approached to act as mediator and instructed as counsel to appear for parties in more than 100 mediations a year.  For the most part, he achieves an inordinate number of settlements either as Counsel, or as mediator assisting parties to reach a result they find acceptable in their circumstances. John is a regular legal conference speaker including STEP, the Blue Mountains Conference, Ten The Education Network and other various legal education channels together with his own Floor’s conference.


Mark Squire, Practice Group Leader – Wills and Estates, Vinden Lawyers
After conducting his own city practice for many years, Mark is now a director and the Practice Group Leader- Wills and Estates at Vinden Lawyers Pty Limited. In this role, Mark is able to practice substantially in estate planning with a particular interest in blended family issues. Mark is a former part-time lecturer at UTS and is a regular presenter to legal and other professional groups, mainly for Legalwise.


Ken Schurgott, Solicitor-Director, Schurgott & Co Lawyers
Ken Schurgott is a Solicitor - Director of Schurgott & Co Lawyers specialising in taxation matters (including State Taxes, stamp duty, payroll tax and land tax) and with extensive experience in business structuring, business sales and acquisitions, asset protection, succession planning and trust and estate law. Ken is very experienced in tax dispute matters, negotiations for settlements, mediations and conciliations and litigation. He regularly appears before the AAT and NCAT and instructs counsel in matters before the Courts. Ken has been heavily involved in consultations with the ATO and Treasury on matters involving trusts. Ken was a member of the Board of Taxation Working Group on 2011 Report on the Taxation of Collective Investment Vehicles which led to the introduction of the AMIT regime. He was National President of The Tax Institute in 2012.

Yolanda Battisson, Special Counsel, Murdoch Lawyers
Yolanda was initially admitted as a solicitor in Queensland in 2001 after having completed a two-year articles of clerkship with Murdoch Lawyers, and was admitted to the High Court of Australia in 2002. She’s been working as a solicitor for almost 25 years and exclusively as a family relationships lawyer for over 18 years of that time. Given her many years of experience in the family law space, she understands the stresses brought on by separation and is committed to assisting people pragmatically and with empathy. She has a particular passion for working with people to help them understand and move through the legal aspects of their separation to set them on a path toward a new start. More specifically, she assists people with complex parenting and financial matters during and after a separation. She frequently assist parents to implement arrangements that enable them to effectively care for their child/children after a separation. She also works with people to finalise their financial separation and this often involves working with high-net worth matrimonial pools and complex company and trust structures.