Steven Gasztowicz KC
We are deeply saddened to announce the death of our dear friend and colleague, Steven Gasztowicz KC, after a short illness, courageously fought.
Steven (or SG as he was often called) was brought up in Lancashire and read Law at Nottingham University, graduating in 1980. He excelled at the Inns of Court School of Law, while also finding time to search out the finer dining establishments in London, and was called to the Bar in 1981. His first pupillage was at Crown Office Row in a specialist insurance set, and his first case as a second-six pupil was defending a driver charged with failing to stop at a zebra crossing. Spotting a weakness in the prosecution case, Steven argued that as there was a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the crossing there were in fact two crossings, and the charge referred to the wrong one. His argument succeeded and his client was acquitted, a fine result (and early testament to his legal prowess) on a brief fee of £15.
Chambers in the 1980s were resistant to change and reluctant to expand, and despite his obvious ability neither Steven nor his fellow pupil was taken on at the end of pupillage. Instead, Steven found a place in Leicester at 2 New Street Chambers, a civil and family set, where he met his future wife, Sally, a family law specialist. Steven developed a broad and successful civil practice, becoming junior counsel to the Crown for property matters in the Midlands, and in 1998 he applied to join Cornerstone where he was warmly welcomed. His practice continued to flourish and in 2009 he took Silk, the same year he appeared in the Supreme Court in Barratt Homes Ltd v Dwr Cymru Cyfyngedig (Welsh Water) and became a Recorder.
Steven had a particularly fertile and adaptable mind and his work spanned crime, general civil cases and specialist chancery matters. In 2016 Steven appeared again in the Supreme Court in Manolete Partners plc v Hastings Borough Council. However, the case that gave him the greatest pride came in 2019 when he acted for the Government of Maharashtra in an appeal against an enforcement notice issued by Camden Council in response to the conversion of a terraced house at 10 King Henry’s Road, Primrose Hill, into a museum. The house had been the London address of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956), one of India’s greatest intellectuals and social reformers, while studying at the LSE and had been acquired by the Government of Maharashtra to establish a memorial museum. Steven persuaded the Secretary of State to quash the notice, and went on to write “Ambedkar as Lawyer: From London to India in the 1920s”, the third chapter of Ambedkar in London (London: C Hurst & Co Publishers, Ltd, 2022).
In 2017 he took on the task of updating Land Covenants by Ernest Scamell, which rightly became Scamell and Gasztowicz on Land Covenants in 2018, with a third edition published under Steven’s authorship in 2023.
In 2019 Steven became a Deputy High Court Judge, sitting in both the Queen’s Bench and Chancery Divisions. He derived particular satisfaction from his work as a judge, something he had wanted to do since Bar School. His expertise in the area of land covenants was fully displayed in Atkinson v Browne [2025] EWHC 1448 (Ch), one of his last judgments, in which he enunciated key legal principles relating to boundary presumptions, the enforceability of restrictive covenants and whether trustees can acquire land by adverse possession within a private estate.
Steven was committed to the law and to the just operation of the legal system. He was a member of the Bar Council Ethics Committee and a Chairman of the UK Association of Fee Paid Judges. He was also a qualified arbitrator and independent expert. In Chambers he served on the management committee where his wisdom and good humour were much valued, and members who had a tricky property or chancery problem found in Steven a sympathetic ear and store of good advice.
As well as a student of the law Steven was a keen historian. On occasions he combined his enthusiasm for both, writing Magna Carta: A Charter for Property and A legal history of Leicester Square. For many years he served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Leicester Grammar School Trust.
Steven was an excellent advocate, a formidable lawyer and a fair judge, but he was also a bon viveur, with a great sense of fun. His loss will be keenly felt by his many friends in Chambers and the wider Bar, but it falls most heavily on his beloved family, and in particular his wife Sally and his children, George and Zara.
- If you would like to share your memories of Steven, please visit our Chambers to sign our condolence book, available from 2 June 2026, which will be passed to Steven’s family. If you can’t physically get to our Chambers, please email Annabella Gorman, and we will pass on your words and input them into the memorial book on your behalf.