The Legal 500

Field Court offers an excellent level of service across a wide range of areas, including property, family, company/commercial, public law and local government, personal injury and employment.

The set: Field Court Chambers provides client-focused barristers who serve the particular needs of commercial, public and private clients in an innovative, expert and pragmatic way. Its highly rated practitioners offer services at all levels of call across their areas of expertise.

Clients range from national, regional and local solicitors to government agencies and local authorities. Some members accept instructions under the public access rules. Chambers hosts regular seminars highlighting legal developments of interest and is willing to give seminars to individual firms or provide speakers for events hosted by them for their clients. Chambers undertakes a regular programme of innovative seminars and lectures, often in association with the Law Society and local government groups. Several members are editors of, or contributors to, publications relating to their areas of specialism, including various volumes of Atkins’ Court Forms; Halsbury’s Laws; Emden’s Construction Law and Tolley’s Claims to the Possession of Land.

Types of work undertaken: The property team covers areas that include housing, landlord and tenant, trusts of land, real property, probate and inheritance, insolvency and professional negligence. Notable expertise in housing law. Members have appeared in many of the leading cases in this area from the County Court to the House of Lords. Services for public sector, private landlords and individuals include: the Homelessness and Part VII Housing Act 1996, Allocations and Part VI Housing Act 1996, judicial review, unlawful eviction and disrepair. Trusts of land are a specialism. Real property expertise ranges from easements and rights of way to restrictive covenants and rights of common.

The family team covers the full range of matters from care and adoption and financial provision, to international issues and abduction. Members have considerable experience in advising and representing parties to ancillary relief applications. The team’s expertise covers all aspects of child law (public and private) and members regularly represent parents, related parties and children. The areas covered include disputed medical evidence, ‘shaken baby’ cases, factitious illness, historic abuse cases and chronic neglect. The family group is also experienced in representing parties to adoption proceedings and applications under the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

The company and commercial group includes all types of contractual, tortious and equitable claims. All aspects of company law and insolvency are dealt with. Expertise at a senior level includes commercial arbitrations, claims for breach of fiduciary duty by senior executives and actions by sporting bodies defending their governance functions. Services in commercial disputes such as sale of goods, severance agreements, business sales and construction disputes, partnership actions, licensing agreements and credit hire are provided. Fast and small claims matters are handled and expertise is provided in freezing orders, search orders and other forms of emergency injunctive intervention. The group also has expertise in intellectual property and consumer credit.

The public law and local government group’s recognised expertise includes housing, community care, local government services and immigration. Field Court is uniquely placed to be a one-stop shop for local authorities and is on the approved panels for over two-thirds of London authorities including the ‘West London Alliance’, the ‘Croydon 10’ in respect of public law, child protection, civil litigation, community care, corporate governance, employment and housing. The set is also on the approved panel for the ‘North West Legal Consortium’.

The personal injury team covers areas that include industrial accidents and diseases, slipping and tripping claims and injuries arising out of road traffic accidents. Members undertake advisory work and all types of litigation, from simple County Court matters to complex, high-value High Court claims arising out of catastrophic injuries to head and spine for claimants and defendants.

The employment team offers specialist advice and representation to both employees and employers in all areas of employment law. The team consists of barristers at all levels of call allowing the clerks to recommend Counsel with the requisite level of experience for every case. Services range from directors’ duties and disputes to share schemes, discrimination and dismissal.