- Tel:
- Work 01442 430900
- Fax:
- Fax 01442 239861
- Web:
- www.underwoods-solicitors.co.uk
- Email:
Kerry Underwood
- Tel:
- Work +44 1442 430 900
- Email:
Position
Senior partner of Underwoods Solicitors and Underwoods South Africa. Underwoods has appeared as advocates in a number of leading reported employment cases. Expert on Legal Services Act and its consequences. Described in ‘Chambers’ as ‘the world’s leading authority on conditional fees’. Consultant to law firms big and small, local authorities, government departments and Commonwealth governments. Has pioneered conditional fees, contingency fees, television advertising and, as chief executive of Law Abroad Limited, the offshoring of legal work to South Africa. Expert in Commonwealth law. Widely recognised as one of the country’s leading employment lawyers.
Career
Listed in De Brett’s ‘People of Today 2009’ and the ‘Dictionary of International Biography’, and the American Biographical Institute’s ‘Great Minds of the 21st Century’. Former London Borough councillor and school governor and stood for Parliament in the 1979 general election; part-time Employment Tribunal judge from 1993-2000; senior partner of Underwoods and Underwoods South Africa. Editor and author of costs products section of Butterworths’ ‘Personal Injury Litigation Service’, and the author of hundreds of articles published in legal journals; author of the classic work ‘No Win, No Fee, No Worries’; ‘Fixed Costs 2’ second edition published in June 2006; appears regularly on radio and television and in the national press in relation to legal topics; lectures extensively. Contributing author to ‘Workplace Law Handbook 2009’.
Member
Fellow Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; Employment Appeal Tribunal advice scheme; Toynbee Hall volunteer. Knight Commander of the Order of St John; Headway, the Brain Injury Association; the Lord Taverner’s charity.
Leisure
Cricket, football, gardening, art, photography, Elvis Presley, literature, especially poems of TS Eliot. Has travelled extensively around the world.
Practice Areas
Administrative and public law; Employment; Professional disciplinary and regulatory law (including police law)