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Employment

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9 St John Street
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Kings Chambers
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St John's Buildings

Leading Silks

Paul Gilroy KC – 9 St John Street ‘Paul is outstanding and has no weaknesses! A phenomenal legal brain who is commercially astute and always client focused. He is quick to understand the detailed background of complex factual matters, the intricate details of a client’s business model, and the significant repercussions for the client in the event of an adverse finding. He puts the client completely at ease and is a top-class operator who delivers exceptional advice and support in a clear and concise manner. Without a doubt, Paul is one of the best employment barristers.'
Simon Gorton KC – Exchange Chambers ‘Simon is extremely good with clients. He is able to mix giving technical advice with being practical. He is extremely technically able and a ferocious cross-examiner. He is incredibly astute and tactically and is second to none.'
Nicholas Siddall KC - Littleton Chambers

2022 Silks

Edward Morgan KC - 9 St John Street

Leading Juniors

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James Boyd – Kings Chambers 'James is an excellent advocate. He is very personable and great to work with. He has a wealth of experience and is a trusted advisor. He gets to understand what is important to the client and tackles the legal issues in the case with that in mind. Cool, calm and collected with an eye for detail.'
Martin Budworth – Kings Chambers ‘Martin's advice is considered, thorough, accurate and practical. He has a very client friendly approach and also commands respect. He represents clients very effectively.'
David Campion – 9 St John Street ‘David's advice is very thorough, clear and practical. He is personable and extremely easy to interact. His advice is balanced and appropriate to the specific needs of the Respondent at all times.'
Steven Flynn - Kings Chambers
Paras Gorasia – Doughty Street Chambers
Catherine Knowles – Exchange Chambers
Anisa Niaz-Dickinson – Kings Chambers ‘Anisa is excellent with clients and has a unique way of setting out complex legal argument in a manner that is straightforward and easy to understand. She is also adept at cutting through large volumes of evidence to pick out the relevant points, has exceptional speed of thought and is a pleasure to work with.'
Daniel Northall – Littleton Chambers
Assunta Del Priore - 9 St John Street
Louise Quigley – 9 St John Street ‘Louise is an impressive advocate and maintains a good relationship with clients. Louise is approachable and willing to assist during the preparation of a case, which is invaluable, as not only can she provide specific advice on points of law and tactics, but it also helps establish a good rapport between Louise, the instructing solicitors and the client.'
Jason Searle – St John’s Buildings ‘Jason is always prepared, excellent with clients and works incredibly hard for them. He is totally reliable.'
Amy Smith – 9 St John Street ‘Amy provides clear, concise and pragmatic advice. She is excellent with commercial clients in understanding their objectives and managing their expectations. She is a phenomenal advocate with a calm but tenacious approach.'
Helen Trotter - Kings Chambers
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Lena Amartey – 9 St John Street ‘Lena is great with clients and witnesses and helps guide them through the tribunal process. She is always ultra prepared for conferences and hearings and she is often instructed to advise ahead of the hearing as part of the strategy discussions. She is a great advocate and very impressive on her feet. She is confident and strategic and really takes the time to understand the client's businesses. She is a go-to barrister on all claims.'
Carlo Breen – 9 St John Street ‘Carlo is a first-class lawyer with wide experience of employment. He understands the human aspects of employment law, is very responsive, meets deadlines and never lets the client down. He always undertakes meticulous preparation and is an excellent advocate, works well with other lawyers and lay clients, is very well respected and provides realistic case assessments.'
Paul Draycott – Doughty Street Chambers
Laura Gould – Kings Chambers 'Laura is very down to earth and personable. She is bright and easy to deal with, clearly knowledgeable, articulate and straightforward.'
Nigel Grundy – 9 St John Street ‘Nigel is extremely personable and an absolute expert in all things employment law and more. An outstanding barrister that calmly and confidently challenges the opposition, impresses clients and judges with his excellent advocacy skills and attention to detail. Nigel always goes above and beyond to assist instructing solicitors and clients.’
Bruce Henry – Kenworthy’s Chambers ‘Bruce responds quickly and clearly to requests for written advice. He has many years experience of Employment Tribunal advocacy, is extremely well organised and quickly forms a deep understanding of the facts and issues involved in a case. He is very user-friendly; he avoids using jargon and is extremely good at explaining tricky processes and legal issues.’
James Hurd – 9 St John Street ‘James is extremely competent, technically excellent, and a highly skilled advocate. He is professional, friendly and approachable, fantastic with clients and easily contactable.’
Jamie Jenkins – St John’s Buildings ‘Jamie’s knowledge of the law and attention to detail is second to none, delivering results under pressure with confidence and clarity. He provides the client with an all-round excellent, professional service.’
Sarah Johnson – Kenworthy’s Chambers 'Sarah is a pragmatic barrister who gets excellent results. She is a solid advocate, reliable and timely.'
Ben Williams – Kings Chambers ‘Ben is a robust and very effective advocate, getting to the heart of issues succinctly and firmly. He instils confidence in both clients and tribunals alike.’
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David Flood - St John's Buildings
Annette Gumbs –St John’s Buildings
Rachel Levene – 9 St John Street 'Rachel is incredibly talented. She is able to put witnesses at ease and talk to them in a way that makes them feel confident that she will put the best case forward. Her communication is excellent and instructing solicitors have entire total confidence in her ability to represent clients very well.'
Ghazan Mahmood – St John’s Buildings 'Ghazan is great with clients, builds a rapport and explains complicated issues in a client friendly way.'
Martin Mensah – Atlantic Chambers ‘Martin is very good at preparation. Equally, he can think on his feet. Instructing solicitors trust him to handle anything relating to the case and appreciate that he is easily contactable.'
Scott Redpath – Exchange Chambers
David Tinkler – Atlantic Chambers ‘David has excellent client care, is very good at dealing with clients, has excellent technical legal knowledge and is great on strategy; very much a team player and highly responsive. He is always prepared and great to work with.'

Rising Stars

Laura Kaye  – 9 St John Street 'Laura is always fully prepared and goes over and above her initial instructions to achieve positive outcomes. Her written submissions are always excellent and she is an extremely effective advocate. She has fantastic communication and interpersonal skills, and it is impressive how quickly she puts clients and witnesses at ease. Laura is fantastic to work with and gets results.'
Rosie Kight – Kings Chambers ‘Rosie has a superb grasp of all issues and is an excellent and available support to lay clients. She marshals the arguments to achieve a successful outcome.’
Robert Lassey – 9 St John Street ‘Robert is a capable, competent and safe pair of hands due to his sound legal knowledge, experience, and expert litigation strategy and tactics. He is hard-working, thorough, masters the law and the facts comprehensively, and has an engaging personality. He is passionate about achieving the best possible outcome, but honest and realistic about confronting risk and weaknesses in the proceedings with a pragmatic approach to dispute resolution.’
Sam Proffitt – Kings Chambers  'Sam is an excellent tactician and plans his tribunal strategy meticulously. He appears to understand his opponent with almost telepathic precision. His attention to detail is first rate and he gets to know a case inside out before he steps through the door of the tribunal. His legal knowledge is outstanding and he always offers insightful comments on recent developments in the law.'
Thomas Wood – St John’s Buildings 'Thomas has a fantastic eye for detail; he just excels at making complex issues simple to handle and his ability to process large volumes of information quickly is second to none too. He also has a very reassuring manner with clients and he's one of the very best employment law advocates and a go-to expert for tricky issues and complex advocacy in employment law.'

Employment in Regional Bar

9 St John Street

9 St John Street is praised for being ‘consistently excellent’ and a ‘leading employment chambers’ that advises across the full spectrum of employment law, including on cases involving unfair dismissal, TUPE transfers, redundancy, deductions from pay and trade union recognition. Paul Gilroy KC has substantial expertise in both contentious and non-contentious employment law matters. Gilroy represented the national retail trade union in USDAW and others v Tesco Stores Limited, a  class action regarding threatened removal of substantial contractual benefits from several hundred warehouse operatives based in distribution depots across the country. James Hurd  has a strong practice focusing on discrimination and whistleblowing cases, as does Louise Quigley , who also specialises in pregnancy and maternity-related mandates. Amy Smith  also has discrimination expertise, especially where there is a complex mental health component involved.

Testimonials

Set

‘9 St John Street has a wide range of expertise in employment matters. It is a number one choice for employment issues and the barristers tend to be very good and accommodating. They tend to have a good availability of barristers across a number of different levels an expertise and if a prebooked barrister has to pull out unexpectedly they are always able to offer another at the same rate. They also offer free training sessions periodically and share legal updates via email.’

‘The Employment set at 9 St John Street Chambers has been consistently excellent for years and its reputation for extremely knowledgeable and often ground breaking advice is well earned.’

‘9 St John Street is the leading employment chambers in the North West with some of the best employment counsel in the country.’

‘9 St John Street Chambers has an excellent reputation for its employment team. It would give any of the specialist employment sets in London food for thought and by and large is dedicated and exceptionally hard working.’

‘9 St John Chambers for the last ten years has a good mix of barristers at different levels. Its barristers are often of high quality and willing to go out of their way to assist.’

Clerking

‘Brilliant service. Always going the extra mile both in providing support during cases and also in providing added value services such as arranging training with the barristers. Julia Lanza is fantastic to deal with – always responsive and going the extra mile.’

‘The clerking team is fantastic. Julia Lanza and Jane Slingsby in particular deserve a special mention.’

‘The clerks are a breeze to liaise with at all stages of making enquires, booking counsel and sorting out any practical arrangements, including those that evolve rapidly and need urgent attention. There is never any impression that any query or request is a nuisance which makes it desirable to approach this set of Chambers without hesitation.’

‘Julia Lanza and Tony Morrissey compliment each other exceptionally well, supporting all needs promptly and commercially. They understand the day to day pressures of a practice and work to achieve the client’s objectives.’

‘Julia Lanza and Tony Morrissey stand out as service quality driven clerks at 9 St John Street Chambers.’

Kings Chambers

Kings Chambers ‘is a go-to chambers for employment matters’. James Boyd leads the employment department with a national practice and he predominantly undertakes cases for employers. Of recent note, he successfully acted for a home care provider regarding whistleblowing claims against it concerning an alleged lack of PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic. Rosie Kight also has a strong practice and acts for respondents and claimants in claims regarding breach of contract and discrimination-related disputes.

Testimonials

Set

‘The employment service is excellent.’

‘Kings Chambers is a go-to chambers for employment matters. They have a range of excellent barristers.’

‘Generally strong and an effort is always made to find someone. The training that is offered is good and proactive – particularly during Lockdown.’

‘Excellent chambers that is recommendable due to the exceptional quality of the clerks and counsel.’

‘Kings Chambers is a go-to set of Chambers.’

Clerking

‘Paul Clarke is quick to respond and provides an excellent service.’

‘The clerks room is fantastic, they are prompt and work hard to find Counsel if there is not an immediate availability. They are fair and reasonable with fees and personable in their approach.’

‘Paul Clarke is an excellent clerk. He is approachable and exceptionally easy to speak to about a case. Obtaining quotes is very straight forward and Paul is always available.’

‘The clerks are committed and reasonable, which is reflected through the whole of the chambers. They are genuinely nice people with excellent skills.’

‘The service is good. Paul Clarke is very helpful and responsive.’

St John's Buildings

St John’s Buildings is ‘a fantastic set‘ and is praised for its ‘expertise across the employment team ‘. Jason Searle is head of the employment team and alongside his expertise in discrimination cases and matters involving social media, he has more recently developed a niche practice handling cases involving the long-lasting effects of Covid-19 and the impact of the pandemic on individuals with disabilities in the workplace. Jamie Jenkins also expertly handles discrimination cases, in addition to matters regarding the education sector. Ghazan Mahmood has substantial expertise in representing health professionals. Thomas Wood  is also of note and has developed a strong practice in discrimination and whistleblowing cases. Wood represented the claimant in Wharton v Harrington & Dunston Lodge Ltd, a case concerning pregnancy discrimination following the requirement for a risk assessment.

Testimonials

Set

‘A fantastic set that always strives to please. The service is second to none!’

‘Never lets you down  regarding availability of Counsel, including at short notice. The expertise across the employment team is quite something.’

‘It is an excellent set. They have a range of experience in the employment team and there is always someone available.’

‘A set that is always there to help, they are approachable, flexible and knowledgeable and provide employment teams with invaluable expert support.’

Clerking

‘Great clerks who are always happy to work with instructing solicitor to accommodate requirements.’

‘The clerks are very responsive, professional and the quality of service is excellent.’

‘Rob Lang sorts everything out, and quickly! A real asset to the set.’

‘Chris Brown provides efficient, friendly and flexible support – he’s always there to help make the process of instructing smooth and clear.’

‘Clerks are very helpful and attentive to instruction needs.’