Alice de Coverley > Chambers of David Berkley KC > London, England > Barrister Profile

Alice de Coverley

Work Department

Education; Commercial; Public and Regulatory; Sports

Position

Alice de Coverley is a specialist education, equality, and public law barrister.

Alice has a busy practice across these fields. She regularly acts on behalf of children and young people, vulnerable adults, parents and carers, schools, local authorities, charities and NGOs, government departments, students, and universities.

Alice has significant experience in working with children and young people with disabilities, mental health conditions, special educational needs and those who have experienced sexual violence. Alice appears almost daily before the First-Tier Tribunal in disability discrimination claims and appeals relating to the contents of Education, Health and Care Plans (Sections B, F and I and National Trial cases in England) and Statements (in the SENTW in Wales). Alice has had notable success in “waking day” and “education otherwise than at school” appeals.

Through her public inquiry work, Alice has developed specialist knowledge in the field of safeguarding, sexual bullying, and sexual violence. She works alongside schools, ISVAs, government bodies, charities, and women’s rights organisations to develop policies and practices that aim to better protect victims of sexual violence. Alice currently acts as Junior Counsel for Ofsted across multiple strands of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), led by Mathew Gullick QC and Sarah Hannett QC. IICSA looks at how various institutions have failed to protect children from sexual abuse – this includes schools, religious institutions, and care homes.

Alice also works on inquests involving vulnerable school children who have died. She is also currently instructed in a claim involving the sexual assault of a female prisoner and is on the legal referral panel for the Centre for Women’s Justice. Her prior personal injury practice continues to aid in her in being able to advise on private law matters of liability and quantum.

Alice is currently instructed in various high-profile judicial review challenges, including claims arising from the coronavirus pandemic affecting young people in education. This included one of the prominent A Level exam judicial reviews in 2020. Alice acts on behalf of both families and local authorities.

Alice is a leading light in the area of school exclusions. Alice has written a book on the law of school exclusions alongside her colleague, Charlotte Hadfield, available on Amazon. This extensive knowledge of school exclusions is used to train local authorities, schools, charities, government bodies, private practice solicitors’ firms and parents directly. Other colleagues in the high profile 3PB Education team often use her extensive knowledge in this area to assist with difficult and complex cases.

Alice is also a contributing author to “Patterson & Karim on Judicial Review” (Lexis, 2019), heading up the Education Law chapter.

Alongside school exclusions, Alice has further specialism in discrimination claims brought under the Equality Act 2010. This includes claims for disability, sex, race, religious, sexual orientation, and gender reassignment discrimination, as well as sexual harassment and victimisation.

For several years post-pupillage, Alice worked very closely with Ofsted providing specialist advisory and advocacy services in all areas that Ofsted regulates and inspects. Her work for Ofsted covered everything from mainstream to independent schools, child protection and safeguarding matters, local authority inspections, and the combating of off rolling and illegal and unregistered schools. Alice worked on a range of complex Equality Act 2010 matters, advising HMCI directly on high-profile matters, such as segregation and sex education. She has also been involved in drafting guidance for inspectors and the public, including the Education Inspection Framework, and assisted in the delivery of various public consultations.

She also acts in breach of contract and negligence claims, and freedom of speech cases, against education providers and local authorities, recently successfully defending a £1 million claim against a top University.

Alice de Coverley is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Please contact Alice for a copy of her privacy policy which sets out the basis upon which any personal data she may collect about you, or that is provided to her, will be processed by her. She will provide a copy of this policy to you within 2 working days of its request.

Education 

Alice has an exceptional education practice. She is passionate about Education Law and children’s rights. Prior to commencing pupillage, Alice was the Chief Director of The School Exclusion Project for four years. This is an award-winning pro-bono unit dedicated to representing parents of permanently excluded school children.

Alice also acts for Ofsted in the Care Standards Tribunal, and is currently acting for Ofsted as Junior Counsel on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA). For full details of the work that Alice is currently dealing with please see her Public Law profile.

She has specialisms within the Education arena and has dealt with a number of matters including claims brought under the Equality Act 2010 for disability, sex, race, pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender reassignment discrimination, harassment and victimization. Alice also regularly appears in appeals in the context of EHC Plans (Sections B F and I) and National Trial cases.

Alice acts for parents, children, young people, schools, Universities, Local Authorities, charities and governmental organisations. She is instructed to act and advise in relation to a broad range of education law matters, including:

• Appeals to the SEND Tribunal on the content of EHC Plans
• Discrimination (particularly disability discrimination) claims in the FTT and County Court
• Compliance with the Equality Act 2010
• School Exclusions
• Judicial Review
• Breach of contract and negligence claims involving education providers
• School Admissions
• Home Education
• Internal academic appeals
• Fitness to Practice appeals
• Appeals to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator
• Public consultations
• Public inquiries
• Data protection and subject access requests.

Recent education law matters which Alice has been involved in include:

• Successfully representing a child with epilepsy in a disability discrimination claim against his school, with the decision being sent by the Tribunal to the EHRC, the DfE and to Ofsted as a result.
• Successfully representing a child with complex and mental health difficulties in a disability discrimination claim against an Academy which had unlawfully place him in isolation for 3 months.
• Successfully representing a child with ADHD ODD and sensory processing disorder in a claim against his school for failure to allow him to attend a skiing trip and punishing him for behaviors arising from hi disability.
• Successfully representing a number of children in their Section I appeals, enabling their progress at the right school which meets their needs.
• Successfully representing children in appeals against “refusal to assess” or “refusal to issue” EHC plans.
• Successfully overturning a permanent exclusion decision regarding  a 6 year old child that brought a cheese knife to school.
• Drafting Ofsted policies and consultation responses on schools, social care settings, unregistered schools, and equality law matters.
• Policy drafting in relation to counter-terrorism measures taken by schools.
• Advising medical and nursing students in claims under the Equality Act 2010 where the University’s competency assessment standards conflicted with the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
• Advising and representing in relation to negligence claims for failure to spot learning difficulties.
• Advising and representing in relation to breach of contract claims involving Independent Schools.
• Advising parents of school pupils with disabilities who have been unlawfully permanently excluded.
• Drafting funding applications to the European Human Rights Commission, to support client’s cases concerning discrimination in education.
• Drafting submissions to the Health and Conduct Committee/Fitness to Practise Committee.
• Drafting submissions to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

Alice has also helped to create a number of BBC Radio 4 programmes about school exclusions. Whilst Alice was Chief Director of The School Exclusion Project, it featured in the press several times addressing unlawful exclusions – for instance this Guardian article.

She is also a volunteer for the charity Inspiring the Future, which connects young people in state schools and colleges with those from the world of work. She has recently been part of their Inspiring Women campaign, mentoring girls from various schools to raise their aspirations and break down gender stereotypes.

Whilst dealing with a busy practice, Alice also finds time to assist the Centre for Women’s Justice by providing pro bono legal advice to Women that approach the charity in need of assistance in a range of matters.

Alice is happy to provide training in relation to education law. Of late she provided training on school admissions appeals to Local Authorities, a talk on disability discrimination to a children’s charity and ran a seminar on school exclusions for solicitors. Please get in touch with her clerks should this be something you would wish to organise.

Commercial

Alice acts in a wide range of contractual matters. She has particular experience and interest in contractual matters arising in the education and social care sector. In particular, she specialises in breach of contract claims involving independent/ private schools, local authorities, and universities. She also acts in claims involving the supply of paid services for disabled people.

She regularly advises education providers, parents, and students on contracts regarding the sale of goods, supply of services, school fees, debt recovery action, enforcement action, agency relationships, misrepresentation, and duress.

She can also advise on the interplay between breach of contract claims and public law matters, such as the relevance of the Equality Act 2010 to independent school disputes. She regularly assists in the drafting of settlement agreements with appropriate confidentiality and indemnity clauses, if so required.

Recent examples of cases Alice has been involved in include:

• Successfully representing parents in claim for breach of contract against their child’s independent school
• Successfully obtaining damages for a young person who was mistreated by his independent school and return of school fees for his parents
• Successfully defending universities in applications to strike out claims for disability discrimination and/or breach of contract
• Successfully defending a top university in a £1m breach of contract and negligence claim
• Advising care providers on the recovery of unpaid fees from public authorities.

Public and Regulatory

Alice currently acts as Junior Counsel for Ofsted across multiple strands of IICSA led by Mathew Gullick QC and Sarah Hannett QC. IICSA looks at how various institutions have failed to protect children from sexual abuse – this includes schools, religious institutions, and care homes.

Alice is actively involved with the Inquiry’s investigations into:

• Residential Schools
• The Roman Catholic Church
• The Anglican Church
• Nottinghamshire Councils
• Child protection in religious organisations and settings
• Effective leadership of child protection

Through her public inquiry work, Alice has developed specialist knowledge in the field of safeguarding, sexual bullying, and sexual violence. She works alongside schools, ISVAs, government bodies, charities, and women’s rights organisations to develop policies and practices that aim to better protect victims of sexual violence.

Alice is regularly instructed by local authorities and families in judicial reviews concerning disabled children.

Alice has worked very closely with Ofsted providing specialist advisory and advocacy services in all areas it inspects and regulates, from social care to independent schools to unregistered schools. Alice’s experience has been used at Ofsted to focus on Equality Act matters and drafting guidance for their inspectors.  Alice worked on a range of complex Equality Act 2010 matters, advising HMCI directly on high-profile matters, such as segregation and sex education. She has also been involved in drafting guidance for inspectors and the public, including the Education Inspection Framework, and assisted in the delivery of various public consultations.

Alice also has experience in inquest work involving school children who have died, including cases involving drug-misuse.

Whilst working for the Government Legal Department, Alice assisted with many matters ranging from Immigration, employment and discrimination cases and the Kenyan Emergency Group Litigation.

Sports

Alice de Coverley has notable expertise in the safeguarding and child-protection dimension of Sports Law. She acts for sport regulators, clubs and teams, and private clients in a wide range of Sports Law matters.

Alice has considerable experience in child safeguarding in sports. This includes child protection in national and international sports and after-school clubs, arising from her instruction on behalf of Ofsted as Junior Counsel in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. Alice is also involved in complex litigation arising from the sexual abuse of young people by sports coaches, PE teachers and after-school club leaders. Alice prosecutes cases before the Football Association and other regulators.

Alice is also a Season Ticket holder at Chelsea Ladies FC and former British Fencer.

Recent cases include:

For the Football Association, she successfully prosecuted a referee in a case concerning serious child protection issues. The referee was permanently banned from football.

For young athletes and school children, she has successfully acted in cases concerning sports coaches and PE teachers, who have failed to protect those in their care from physical and/or sexual abuse.

Career

Year of call 2014

Memberships

• Education Law Association (ELAS)
• Personal Injury Bar Association (PIBA)
• Centre for Women’s Justice
• Attorney General’s Junior Junior panel
• Editorial Board Member of Counsel Magazine.

Education

• City Law School GDL (Commendation)
• City Law School BPTC (Very Competent)
• Durham University BA Hons Theology (2:1)
• “Just Rights” Human Rights – the Big Voice Mooting Competition Champion, 2013, winning in the final at the Supreme Court
• In 2012 the School Exclusion Project won the Bar Pro Bono Award
• In 2014 the School Exclusion Project was runner up in the Attorney General LawWorks Pro Bono Awards for ‘Best Contribution by a Team of Students’.