Employment
With particular expertise in the medical, financial services, and legal industries, the team at Irwin Mitchell is highly skilled at handling complex and high-value discrimination and whistleblowing claims. Shah Qureshi heads up the practice, handling a broad spectrum of matters, including complex discrimination cases, whistleblowing, sexual harassment, and equal pay claims. Qureshi’s work regularly proceeds to tribunal, where he predominantly represents individuals, such as medical doctors, academics, and senior executives. Deborah Casale handles disability discrimination, unfair dismissal, victimisation, and sexual harassment claims, while Danielle Parsons regularly assists with group worker status claims and equal pay matters. Often engaged in employment tribunals, Shazia Shah is skilled at leading group action claims and race discrimination matters, and Tina Din is sought out to lead on cases involving harassment and complex sex and sexual orientation discrimination issues in the workplace.
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Employment
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Shah is head of the Employment and Professional Discipline team in London. His practice covers all areas of employment law, discrimination law and professional discipline. He is a recognised leader in representing executives and professionals in both contentious and non-contentious work.
He has also developed a good reputation in pursuing successful discrimination and whistleblowing cases against large corporations and public bodies. He has extensive experience of advising on regulatory issues including cases before the Financial Conduct Authority and the General Medical Council, and has a portfolio of key employer clients ranging from national charities, local authorities and companies. He is also an accredited mediator.
Shah is a former Board Member of the Discrimination Law Association and the Muslim Council of Britain’s Legal Affairs Committee. He is an active member of the Employment Lawyer’s Association.
He is the author of the Equal Opportunities chapter of Tolley’s Employment and Personnel Procedures and a former visiting lecturer at London Metropolitan University. He has spoken at conferences held by the Law Society, Employment Lawyers’ Association, National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Discrimination Law Association.
Shah has been interviewed and quoted in the press including the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and the Independent. He has appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC News, Channel 4 and Radio 5 Live to provide legal comment.
In 2022, Shah won the 'Achievements in Law' award at the British Muslim Awards.
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Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
'The team is made up of several layers at varying levels of qualification. The team works exceptionally well together and it is clear that clients are well serviced by a team as opposed to a single fee earner. The team's primary strength is being able to service a significant number of high value and complex claims with collaboration between fee earners. In particular, strong client care is a clear highlight.'
'Shah Quereshi has tremendous employment law knowledge and experience.'
'The alignment between senior partners and junior lawyers is impressive. The result is a cohesive and very effective team. This gives a sense (borne out by experience) of their ability to react quickly to a changing situation.'
'Deborah Casale is technically excellent as one would expect of a senior partner. However, her client management skills are outstanding, enabling her client to navigate the emotional highs and lows of a matter by acknowledging them and then keeping them in perspective so that they do not derail the overall strategy.'
'Responsive, wide skills base, people centred and commercial.'
'Shazia Shah is outstanding, she goes the extra mile for clients. Her responsiveness is second to none and she provides excellent legal and commercially astute advice.'
'There is no employment situation Deborah Casale hasn't addressed: experienced, out-of-the-box thinker who puts her client's interests at the heart of everything.'
'Deborah Casale is kind and empathetic and respects her clients. She takes the time to understand their perspective and she is brilliant at using her network to ensure that clients interface with the right people across the firm.'
'The team has deep expertise and can be relied upon'
'Responsive, wide skills base, people centred and commercial.'