The Legal 500

Work Department

Administrative and public law, education, employment.

Position

Barrister specialising in commercial law; discrimination law; education; employment law and public law. Adam’s employment law practice covers individual and collective rights, unfair and wrongful dismissal, TUPE and sex, race, religion and disability discrimination. His commercial and pragmatic approach attracts clients including employers and employees across the breadth of industry sectors. Adam is regularly instructed in the appellate courts, has appeared before the Privy Council and in the House of Lords. He also handles emergency injunction work – in 2006 acting in a major commercial property case which resulted in a multi-million-pound settlement and a number of confidential cases. Recent cases include: Edebi v Canary Wharf Management Limited (2006) (the leading EAT case on the question of what constitutes a ‘grievance’ for the purposes of the Employment Act 2002); Hanna v Imperial Life Assurance Company (Privy Council, 15 February 2007) (employment status and breach of contract); James v Redcats (2007) (this is an important case on the meaning of a ‘worker’ and for the assessment of ‘mutuality of consideration’); Forsyth v Eton College [2005] (successfully represented the claimant in this high-profile case); Uphill v Colas Ltd [2005] EAT (whistleblowing and unfair dismissal); Singh v Esprit [2004] All ER 11 (victimisation and race discrimination); Nagy v Metropolitan Police [2004] All ER (D) 109 (a civilian employed by the police could bring a claim for sex discrimination); Corus and Regal Hotels Plc v Wilkinson [LTL] 5/7/04 (a case on the definition of redundancy); TBL v Awada [LTL] 24/3/04 (complex High Court civil fraud); Young v JJB Sports [LTL] 26/3/03 (Court of Appeal determining effect of preliminary determination by Employment Tribunal; Leung v Imperial College London [2002] ELR 653 (admissibility of late evidence in judicial review); Larwood v Earth Tronics [2003] All ER 432 (EAT case on costs in tribunals); Joseph v Cedar [2003] All ER 394 (time limits and race discrimination); K v Newham Times 28/2/02 (a human rights challenge to school admission); Pye v Oxford City council [2001] EWITC Admin 870; R v Flintshire County Council, ex p Armstrong Braun [CA] 2001 3LELR; A case which ‘went to the heart of democracy’ involving a challenge to the local authority’s standing orders which prevented a local councillor from exercising his democratic rights; AB v CD [2001] IRLR 808; R v Richmond LBC ex p JC [2001] ELR 21; Whiffen v Milham Ford Girls School and Another (CA), [2001] ICR 1023.

Career

Publications include: ‘The Cost of Asylum’, Solicitors Journal, Vol 146 No 44; ‘Exporting Human Rights: extraterritorial application of the HRA’, Solictors Journal, Vol 145 No 19; ‘A quick review of delay: when to bring proceedings for judicial review’, Judicial Review May 2001; ‘Interim Declarations: a new power’, Judicial Review, 2001 (p 10); contributor to ‘Commercial Judicial Review’ by P Engelman, 1st Ed, 2000 (Sweet & Maxwell); ‘New Competition for Supermarkets’ DAC House Hournal, April 1999; ‘How to stop ‘Go’ – competition law in the air’ Freight Transport Buyer, 07.1998; ‘The Long Arm of European Competition Law’ Journal of American Institute of Defence Counsel, 03.1998; ‘Arbitrators are not lawyers’ Lloyds List, 11.1997; ‘The EC Directive on Commercial Agents’ Freight Transport Buyer, 11.1997; ‘Law on trial in Kazakhstan’ Legal Action, the journal of the Legal Action Group, 11.1997, following participation in the Law Society’s pro-bono project to teach law in Kazakhstan.

Languages

French.

Member

Administrative Law Bar Association; Prisoners’ Legal Rights Group; member of the Bar pro Bono Unit; Volunteer for Planning Aid for London; trustee and Company Director of Law for All (a charity committed to assisting with access to justice for those least able to afford legal representation).

Education

Exeter College, Oxford (1992 MA); Sussex University (1994 MA); City University (1997 CPE).

Practice Areas

Commercial; Employment; Fraud: civil