Seen by clients as ‘leaders in pensions claims’, Outer Temple Chambers handles a broad range of pensions work, synchronising with the set’s reputation for employment work. The set had four members – Philip Stear, Patrick Tomison, Nicolas Stallworthy KC, and Andrew Short KC – involved in one of the largest pensions cases of late, Virgin Media Ltd v NTL Pension Trustees II Ltd. Dealing with the wider question of if section 37 of the Pension Schemes Act of 1993 invalidated amendments made without an actuary’s certificate. This year, three of the six counsel involved in the ’massive Part 8 action’ Verity Trustees Ltd v Wood & Save the Children Fund, Re: The Pensions Trust are from Outer Temple: Nicolas Stallworthy KC, Victoria Brown, and Andrew Spink KC. The case, proceedings for a multi-employer scheme with nearly 3,000 employees and £13bn in assets, is the longest submissions-only trial in the area.
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Work Department
Employment and Discrimination, Pensions, Financial Services, Information Rights, Commercial and Chancery
Position
Barrister specialising in Employment and Discrimination, Pensions, Financial Services, Information Rights, Commercial and Chancery.
Career
Patrick was called to the bar in 2018.
Patrick has developed a broad commercial practice, with a particular focus on pensions, employment, information law and financial services.
He has appeared before the High Court, County Court, First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights), Employment Appeal Tribunal and Employment Tribunal. Patrick also has experience in group litigation with a professional negligence and fraud focus.
Patrick has a particular interest in data protection, where he has experience of litigation involving the GDPR and the data protection framework, and in the regulatory aspects of both pensions and financial services matters. He has been on secondments to the FCA and TPR and continues to be instructed by them.
Prior to joining chambers, Patrick worked in the Court of Appeal as the judicial assistant to Sir Ernest Ryder, the Senior President of Tribunals.
Memberships
- Association of Pension Lawyers
- COMBAR
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Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- The clerks are attentive and always on hand to offer suggestions for Counsel. Matt Sale is excellent.
- The clerking for pensions is led by Matt Sale, in parallel with Nicholas Levett and Lexie Johnson - they are quick, responsive and reasonable and entirely approachable and collaborative. They are the easiest of clerks to deal with.
- Outer Temple is a pensions powerhouse. All the barristers in the pensions team are approachable and lovely to work with.
- They are user-friendly, commercial and act collegiately with instructing solicitors, in addition to being super switched on and tech-savvy.
- A go-to Chambers for pensions advice. Strength in depth at all levels for pensions.
- Outer Temple remains one of the best for pensions litigation work.
- Outer Temple's pensions counsel is particularly good - their training programmes are informative and topical.
- One of the two heavyweight sets on pensions. They have built a very successful team over the last decade, with great quality and strength in depth.
- OTC are a great pensions set. They offer a wide variety of counsel, and can suit any needs in any circumstances.