Sappho Dias > 4-5 Gray's Inn Square > London, England > Barrister Profile

Sappho Dias

SDias@4-5.co.uk

Position

Sappho is an experienced advocate, who has practised both Criminal and Civil law. She began her career as an advocate in 1982 and she has been in continuous practice since that date. After she moved to civil law, she has primarily practised in local government work advising in a wide range of cases from Election Law cases to Court of Protection cases. Of late, because of tragic personal circumstances, she has concentrated and built up a practice advising on legal advice privilege. She has acted as independent counsel for the SFO in a wide range of cases, as well as the Metropolitan Police.

Career

Sappho has been consistently ranked in Band One for Election Law by Chambers and Partners for the past 5 years. As her clients are local authorities (in respect of Election Law), this reflects the degree of confidence they place in her work. In respect of her work on legal professional privilege, the SFO have instructed her in eight different investigations. The Metropolitan Police have instructed her as independent counsel in their investigation into the fire at Grenfell Tower.

Sappho was for many years, a faculty member of the advanced advocacy course at Keble College Oxford (which takes place as a residential course for one week at the end of August each year). She wrote a succession of problems on which the participants worked. In addition, as she is by origin, Burmese, she acted pro bono in a succession of cases for Burmese political prisoners which she took to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. All her clients were high profile political prisoners and she did not lose a single case. She paid a high price for this work and she has been banned from entering Myanmar, her country of origin.

Languages

Burmese and Urdu