Sophie Garner > Chambers of Sara Lewis KC > Birmingham, England > Barrister Profile
St Philips Chambers Offices
St Philips Chambers
55 TEMPLE ROW
BIRMINGHAM
B2 5LS
England
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Sophie Garner
Work Department
Employment
Position
Sophie is an experienced specialist in employment and discrimination law whose caseload encompasses the full range of employment and discrimination disputes in the Employment Tribunal, EAT and County or High Court. Her personable manner and tenacity in ‘against the odds’ cases are characteristics that are often commented upon favourably by lay and professional clients. She particularly enjoys claims involving novel points of discrimination law. As well as currently being a specialist employment/discrimination practitioner, Sophie also has commercial and property experience. She lectures regularly both in-house and externally on employment and discrimination law and was called to give evidence on behalf of the Discrimination Law Association in November 2012 to the select committee on Women in the Workplace. Through her extensive experience of voluntary work as a charity trustee/director, Sophie has gained a wide knowledge and understanding of corporate and organisational operations and qualified as a company secretary (ACIS) in 2002. She was nominated as one of the Attorney General’s ‘Pro-Bono Heroes’ for 2009. Sophie is a member of St Philips ADR Group.
Career
Called 1990, Middle Temple. Accredited commercial mediator CEDR, 2000; ADR Group, 2009; accredited workplace mediator, globis, 2011. Patron of the ‘Amicus’ Charity since 2012.
Memberships
Association of Midland Mediators; Discrimination Law Association (executive committee member); Employment Lawyers Association; Employment Law Bar Association; associate of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries.
Education
1989 LLB (Hons); 2002 ACIS.
Lawyer Rankings
Regional Bar > Midland Circuit > Employment
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 1Sophie Garner –St Philips Chambers ‘Sophie is brilliant with clients. She will always put in 100% effort when working on a case and has first-class knowledge of employment law. She provides excellent legal advice.’
St Philips Chambers is a ‘trusted chambers with a great selection of talented barristers’ and continues to advise claimants and respondents on discrimination, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing cases, as well as handling equal pay and restrictive covenants matters. Edmund Beever has ‘an inherent ability to put clients at ease’, and is currently representing an employer in a gross misconduct dismissal matter. Sophie Garner is representing a claimant in a discrimination and unfair dismissal matter, while Elizabeth Hodgetts is defending a local government employer against a claim for constructive unfair dismissal brought by a former employee. Theodora Hand is now head of employment at Appleby in Bermuda, and Jonathan Gidney was made an Employment Judge in April 2023.