Tom Royston > Garden Court North Chambers > Manchester, England > Barrister Profile
Garden Court North Chambers Offices
3RD FLOOR, BLACKFRIARS HOUSE,PARSONAGE
MANCHESTER
M3 2JA
England
- Set Profile
- Go to...
Tom Royston
Work Department
Court of Protection
Public Law
Position
Tom Royston specialises in immigration, housing, mental capacity and social security law.
He won a Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year award in 2017, was shortlisted as The Legal 500 Regional Junior of the Year in 2019, and as The Legal 500 Public Law Junior of the Year, and Chambers UK Bar Award Human Rights and Public Law – Junior in 2023. Tom was a Times Lawyer of the Week in 2020, and has been listed for some years in Band 1 of both Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500.
He has appeared eight times in the UK Supreme Court, and has experience of international litigation in the CJEU and ECSR. Most of his work is in tribunals, the county court and the Administrative Court.
Tom is often instructed in test cases about systemic problems with how the state treats individuals.
Career
Before coming to the Bar in 2012, Tom worked with the Citizens Advice Bureau.
As a barrister he has particular expertise with unlawful eviction, capacity issues, and cases raising disability discrimination defences and counterclaims. He deals with a mixture of judicial review and statutory appeals.
Languages
English
Memberships
- Tom sits on the Bar Council’s Civil (Public) Panel.
Education
MA (Cantab);
GDL (Distinction);
BPTC (Outstanding)
Lawyer Rankings
Regional Bar > Northern Circuit > Immigration
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 1Regional Bar > Northern Circuit > Administrative and public law (including civil liberties and human rights)
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 1Tom Royston – Garden Court North Chambers ‘Tom is truly excellent and the foremost claimant social security counsel at the junior Bar. He has encyclopaedic knowledge of benefits law and deploys it effectively in litigation, including cases of significance to many people.’
Claimant set Garden Court North Chambers ‘is very dedicated to social justice’ and its members handle a wide variety of public law cases concerning human rights, immigration and asylum, inquests and public inquiries, housing, discrimination, community care, prison law and social welfare. The barristers also regularly represent vulnerable individuals and community groups. Public law specialist Pete Weatherby KC represented the family of Yousef Makki during the inquest into his death and the subsequent judicial review regarding the failure of the coroner to reach a proper conclusion. Tom Royston has a nationally notable practice in litigation concerning benefits payments, and he successfully argued in AM v SSWP that an individual should be able to seek to obtain backdated Universal Credit at any time, rather than only at the time of their first application. Anna Morris KC was appointed to silk in the 2023 round.