Sarah Crowther KC > Chambers of James Counsell KC and Keith Bryant KC > London, England > Barrister Profile

Chambers of James Counsell KC and Keith Bryant KC
Outer Temple Chambers
THE OUTER TEMPLE, 222 STRAND
LONDON
WC2R 1BA
England

Living Wage

Work Department

Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence, Public Law, Employment and Discrimination, Sports Law

Position

Barrister specialising in Personal Injury, Public Law, Employment and Discrimination, Clinical Negligence, Sports Law.

Career

Year of Call – 1999; Silk in 2018.

Sarah Crowther KC has a broad practice with areas of focus in personal injuryprivate international lawclinical negligence and public law and discrimination cases.

Sarah has experience in all claims for injury, illness or accident with an international element, including advising on European law issues especially concerning the EU Motor Insurance Directives and disputes over jurisdiction and applicable law. She has appeared in recent high-profile cases in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and is experienced in working with expert evidence of foreign law and handling claims to which foreign law applies.

Regularly acting for both claimants and defendants, Sarah balances a “commercial approach” with a “compassionate nature”.

Sarah’s public and human rights law practice, founded on her experience of constitutional human rights appeals to the Privy Council, focuses on discrimination, supply of goods and services and employment. She has appeared at all levels from employment tribunal to the Supreme Court in such cases.

Sarah has acted in several of the leading cases on religious rights discrimination, including representing Christian hoteliers who refused to supply a same-sex couple with a double-bedded room due to conflict with their religious belief. She is currently appearing in Ashers v Lee concerning whether Christian owners of a bakery can lawfully be required to ice a cake with a message promoting same-sex marriage.

Sarah’s clinical negligence work includes birth injury, spinal cord injury and fatal claims. She has appeared successfully at trial in claims concerning consent to treatment following the Montgomery decision and regularly advises on complex breach and causation issues involving multiple expert disciplines.

Her broader personal injury practice encompasses catastrophic injury, road traffic, insurance, employer’s liability, sport and asbestos-related illness claims. Sarah acts at High Court level for claimants and defendants.

Sarah is recognised in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners for her expertise in Travel Law, Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury.

Sarah played hockey for Cambridge University and Richmond HC, these days is a sporting spectator, including of Blackburn Rovers and Lancashire CCC. Sarah speaks German and some French.

Languages

French, German.

Memberships

  • Bar Council Member
  • South Eastern Circuit Committee Member
  • PIBA
  • ELBA
  • Women in Sports Law
  • BASL

Lawyer Rankings

London Bar > Clinical negligence

(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 4

Sarah Crowther KCOuter Temple Chambers ‘Sarah has exceptional knowledge and experience of cross-border PI and clinical negligence work.’

London Bar > Personal injury, industrial disease and insurance fraud

(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 2

Sarah Crowther KCOuter Temple Chambers ‘Sarah is a meticulous and tenacious advocate. Always well-prepared, not afraid to take a difficult point and technically gifted on tricky points of law and procedure.’

Outer Temple Chambers is heralded as a ‘top tier London set‘, with particular personal injury expertise regarding sports claims, equine claims, and those with a cross-border element. Sarah Crowther KC has particular strength in such cross-border claims, including EU law interpretation. James Counsell KC and Ben Bradley are instructed for the claimants in AXM v Chelsea Football Club, who experienced racial abuse while playing for the club’s youth sides – exemplifying the set’s sports and abuse expertise. Eliot Woolf KC has notable expertise regarding road traffic accident claims, and Gerard McDermott KC is currently leading a claim for over eight hundred victims of the Grenfell tower fire.