Thursday, 23 February 2012
Who? Mark Wilson, 50, head of business defence at Midlands and northern England firm Cartwright King.
Why is he in the news? Acted for US businessman Milan Mandaric who, along with Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, was cleared of tax evasion charges at Southwark Crown Court this month.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Who? Ben Patrick, employment lawyer at trade union Unison, responsible for overseeing some 40,000 individual equal pay claims against local authorities.
Why is he in the news? Bury Metropolitan Borough Council - after five years and an estimated legal bill of more than £1m - has finally settled the equal pay claims of nearly 1,000 low-paid female workers.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Who? Nogah Ofer, 45, solicitor specialising in actions against the police at London firm Bhatt Murphy.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Who? Mike Cain, 39, employment solicitor at national firm Russell Jones & Walker.
Why is he in the news? Acted for the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) in a case that won a 60 days’ pay award for 24,000 workers made redundant when Woolworths Group collapsed in 2008.
The Central London Employment Tribunal ruled that the employer and its administrators had failed in their statutory duty to consult before making redundancies, and that the employees were therefore entitled to an award under protection of employment legislation.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Who? Jim Duffy, 28, public law and human rights solicitor at Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers.
Why is he in the news? Acting in judicial review proceedings brought by Cait Reilly, a 22-year-old graduate who had to give up a vocational internship in a museum to take unpaid work stacking shelves and cleaning in a store under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Who? Kevin Timms, 24, trainee solicitor at Hertfordshire personal injury firm Garden House.
Why is he in the news? He is acting in a group action against 13 cosmetic surgery clinics accused of fitting women with defective silicone breast implants manufactured by French company PIP. PIP went into liquidation in March 2010 and has no insurer outside France.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Who? Nigel Richardson, 53, senior crime partner at London firm Hodge Jones & Allen.
Why is he in the news? As a solicitor-advocate he successfully defended a client charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1959. The defendant, Michael Peacock, 52, of Brixton, London, runs a gay website selling DVDs of male fisting, urination and bondage, domination and sado-masochism.
The jury at Southwark Crown Court watched a selection of the DVDs and was asked to decide whether they were likely to ‘deprave and corrupt’ viewers. It cleared Peacock of all charges.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Who? Daniel Slade, 31, partner at Manchester personal injury firm Express.
Why is he in the news? Acting for clients who say they suffered breathing difficulties and other symptoms after using a sofa protection spray from furniture retailer Harveys. Slade said that one of the active ingredients of Harveys Sofa Protector Spray is a solvent called heptane.
‘Commercial contractors wear a mask when using it,’ he said, ‘but there is no warning on the packaging when it is sold to the public’.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Who? Mark Elder, 39, dispute resolution and commercial litigation partner at the Birmingham offices of national firm Irwin Mitchell.
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Who? Tessa Gregory, 33, public law and human rights solicitor at Birmingham firm Public Interest Lawyers.
Why is she in the news? Acted for Ekaterina Zatuliveter, 26, who was arrested and served with a deportation order in December 2010 because, MI5 believed, she was a Russian spy. The case against her was given weight by her relationships with older men, including Mike Hancock MP, who has sat on the parliamentary defence select committee and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Russia.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Who? Simon Natas, 40, solicitor advocate and criminal defence solicitor at London firm Irvine Thanvi Natas.
Why is he in the news? Successfully appealed the conviction of Denzel Harvey, 20, who had been found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour while being searched for illegal drugs by police officers.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Who? Shah Qureshi, 42, employment partner at London firm Bindmans.
Why is he in the news? Acted in the Employment Appeal Tribunal for Nadine Quashie, a former lap dancer for Stringfellow Restaurants Limited, whose claim of unfair dismissal had been rejected by the London Central Employment Tribunal on the grounds that she was self-employed.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Who? Alex Rook, 35, public law associate at national firm, Irwin Mitchell.
Why is he in the news? Acted for two disabled clients who successfully challenged their local authority’s decision to cut its adult social care budget.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Who? Paul Harris, 44, managing partner of Edward Fail Bradshaw & Waterson, and former president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association.
Why is he in the news? Represented Pakistan’s former cricket captain Salman Butt, 27, convicted for his part in a ‘spot-fixing’ scam during a Lord’s Test match. Butt, along with bowler Mohammad Asif, was found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and conspiracy to accept corrupt payments. Butt intends to appeal against his 30-month sentence.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Who? Ian Kelcey, 60, criminal solicitor-advocate and senior partner at Bristol firm Kelcey & Hall.
Why is he in the news? He represented Vincent Tabak, the Dutch engineer found guilty last week of the murder of Bristol landscape architect Jo Yeates. After Tabak’s conviction, it emerged that evidence, not seen by the jury, revealed Tabak kept internet pornography showing violence against women, including images of men holding their hands around women’s necks during sex and pictures of women tied up in car boots.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Who? Greg Almond, 29, principal of Manchester personal injury firm Almond.
Why is he in the news? He is representing several clients who may have suffered severe allergic reactions as a result of colouring their hair with dye containing para-phenylenediamine (PPD).
Some of Almond’s clients reported an almost immediate sensation of severe burning, along with a swollen face and tongue. Others claimed more gradually developing symptoms, with damage to the hair follicles and hair loss.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Who? Hannah Rutterford, 37, personal injury partner at East Anglia firm Ashton KCJ.
Why is she in the news? Won compensation in the High Court last week for Christopher Corder, 45, who sustained injuries to his brain and limbs after being struck by an uninsured motorist driving musician Pete Doherty’s Daimler.
In September 2009, Corder was delivering church leaflets on foot near his home in Hadleigh, Suffolk, when he was run over by Doherty’s manager, Andrew Boyd, 42, of London.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Who? Hannah Rutterford, 37, personal injury partner at East Anglia firm Ashton KCJ.
Why is she in the news? Won compensation in the High Court last week for Christopher Corder, 45, who sustained injuries to his brain and limbs after being struck by an uninsured motorist driving musician Pete Doherty’s Daimler.
In September 2009, Corder was delivering church leaflets on foot near his home in Hadleigh, Suffolk, when he was run over by Doherty’s manager, Andrew Boyd, 42, of London.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Who? Paul Dixon, 53, licensing and regulatory affairs partner at Rochdale firm Molesworths Bright Clegg.
Why is he in the news? Acted for Portsmouth pub landlady Karen Murphy, who took her case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) after an English court ordered her to pay around £8,000 in fines and costs for using a foreign decoder to screen Premier League football matches to her customers.
Murphy paid £800 a year for a Greek decoder - about one-tenth of the cost of a Sky subscription - to show live matches.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Who? Paul Mayson, 41, principal and commercial litigation partner at Burnley firm Maysons.
Why is he in the news? Acted at a three-week inquest for the manufacturer of an untested Taser stun gun with which police tried, but failed, to capture murderer Raoul Moat, 37, before he could commit suicide.
In July 2010, Moat wounded his ex-girlfriend and killed her new boyfriend in Northumberland, before shooting and blinding a police officer.
