Gatehouse Chambers

Emily has experience in a wide range of commercial litigation, with particular expertise in construction disputes, alongside insolvency and company work including shareholder disputes. Emily has significant experience in the construction sector, including construction insurance and insolvency matters, and she is regularly instructed in adjudications and appears unled in the County Court and High Court. Emily also frequently handles professional negligence claims in the financial, legal and construction contexts, in particular claims involving architects, designers and legal professionals. She has considerable experience of both domestic and international litigation and in multi-jurisdictional cases involving fraud and insolvency. Emily’s practice also includes representing clients at mediation and other forms of ADR.

Emily is regularly instructed as sole counsel across her areas of specialism for advisory work and frequently appears in both the High Court and County Courts, including the TCC. Emily’s recent work as sole counsel includes:

• Advising a local authority in 2026 in relation to a dispute with a private construction firm involving claims in negligence and breach of section 100(4) of the Highways Act 1980.

• Advising a building owner in 2025 in relation to a £20m commercial construction insurance dispute.

• Successfully acting for a commercial construction entity seeking disclosure orders in ongoing litigation in 2025.

• Advising on the enforceability of a guarantee in the context of a commercial construction claim in 2025.

• Advising in relation to a £3m shareholder dispute in 2025.

• Acting unled in multi-million unfair prejudice actions under s.994 Companies Act 2006 and related interlocutory and injunctive matters in 2024.

• Enforcing a £1.1m adjudication award in the High Court while also successfully resisting an application by the defendant to stay judgment in 2024.

• Defending injunctive proceedings concerning restrictive covenants in the High Court in 2024.

• Advising in relation to a property transaction involving restrictive covenants with a value of c. £25m in 2024.

• Advising a large UK developer in relation to potential Building Safety Act 2022 claims in respect of a large mixed residential and commercial development in 2024.

• A three-day trial of a commercial dispute involving fraud and conspiracy claims in 2023.

• Acting in the two-day trial of a consumer construction dispute in 2023.

• Applications relating to personal and corporate insolvency in the Insolvency Court.

• Advising on a fraud claim against the former financial controller of a limited company in 2023.

• Advising a local authority in a commercial claim with a value of £1.5m in 2023.

• Applications for interim relief, including those engaging cross-jurisdictional principles.

• Advising a CIC in the energy sector seeking injunctive relief in 2022.

Emily was also instructed in 2021 as junior counsel in Pipia v BGEO Group Limited, involving claims for $300m in Commercial Court proceedings brought by a Georgian businessman against the English branch of a Georgian financial institution. Led by Nigel Jones KC.

Emily was instructed in 2020 as junior counsel in the five-week trial of a substantial and highly technical commercial dispute in the renewables sector with an approximate value of c.£50m (Toucan Energy Holdings Limited v Wirsol Energy Limited & Ors [2021] EWHC 895 (Comm)).

Emily’s international experience extends to Georgia, the Channel Islands, BVI, Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Bermuda and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Call: 2014

Before joining Gatehouse Chambers Emily undertook pupillage at a leading set of commercial chambers in London, following which she was employed at a major London firm of solicitors handling a wide variety of commercial litigation and arbitration. She previously worked in publishing and her commercial experience has also been enhanced by her years in the editorial team at Simon & Schuster UK.

• COMBAR

• YFLA

• Society of Construction Law

• TECBAR

Bar Professional Training Course (Very Competent), BPP University
Graduate Diploma in Law (Commendation), City Law School
MPhil (Classics), St John’s College, Cambridge
BA Hons (First) in Classics, St John’s College, Cambridge