Claire Darwin

Claire Darwin specialises in Employment and Discrimination Law. She undertakes related work in the fields of Commercial, Public, Education, Human Rights and EU Law.

She is recognised as a leading barrister for Employment, Education and Public Law by the independent legal directories. The Legal 500 2020 lists her as one of the top ten leading employment juniors at the London Bar.

According to recent editions, she is a “go-to barrister” who “has a complete forensic understanding of her cases” and “always gives it her all.” Claire is said to be “[a] very good advocate who has very good judgement” and “widely respected within the market for her expertise in employment and discrimination law, often with human rights and public law elements.” The Directories highlight that she is a “fearsome advocate” and “an excellent cross-examiner,” and that “she’s prepared to get off the fence and provides very clear and straightforward advice.”

Claire was appointed to the Attorney General’s A Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown in June 2017, a small panel of barristers appointed to advise and represent the UK government in complex civil and EU cases. She has also been appointed to the Attorney General’s Panel of Special Advocates, and to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Panel of Preferred Counsel.

She was called to the Bar of Ireland on 19 July 2018, and is a member of the Law Library of Ireland.

Her full CV is available here and her Employment CV is available here.

Trial Work

Claire has a wealth of experience of litigating substantial high-stakes disputes in the Employment Tribunal, County Court and the High Court, and she consistently achieves outstanding results for her clients. She has particular experience of acting in group/multi-party litigation, and has acted in a variety of mediations and other forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution. Claire has experience of handling parallel civil, criminal and regulatory actions. Her recent trial work includes:

• BBC equal pay complaints: Claire is instructed by the National Union of Journalists on behalf of 121 women at the BBC.  See here for an example of media coverage.
• Acting for the College of Policing (the professional body for the police in England and Wales) in a series of discrimination law challenges brought against the medical standards applied to Authorised Firearms Officers: see here for an example of media coverage.
• Defending ITV in litigation about whether the Equality Act 2010 required it to subtitle all content on the ITV Hub.

Appellate Work

Claire has significant experience of advocacy, advisory and drafting work at appellate level. She has appeared both led and unled in the Court of Appeal, and as junior counsel in matters before the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights. Claire has appeared in dozens of full appeals in the Employment Appeal Tribunal, many of which have been reported. Recent examples of her appellate work include:

• Brown v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis & Anor [2019] EWCA Civ 1724, Court of Appeal: application of QOCS to mixed claims.
• Proprietor of Ashdown House School v. (1) JKL (2) MNP [2019] UKUT 259 (AAC), Upper Tribunal: whether First-tier Tribunal had jurisdiction to order an independent school to reinstate a pupil, see here for an example of media coverage.
• Graysons Restaurants Ltd v Jones and others [2019] EWCA Civ 725, [2019] IRLR 649, Court of Appeal: whether equal pay claims are arrears of pay within the insolvency protection scheme. Sole counsel for the Court.
• Ameyaw v PricewaterhouseCoopers Services Limited [2019] IRLR 611, Employment Appeal Tribunal: whether an ET has the power to exclude or remove a judgment from the public register of judgments. Sole counsel for PwC.
• Moorthy v HMRC [2018] 3 All ER 1062, Court of Appeal: whether injury to feelings payments are subject to income tax. Lead counsel for the Appellant. See judgment here.

A full list of her significant cases is available here.

Employment

Claire’s practice covers a broad range of work-related matters, including whistleblowing, pay and contractual disputes and workplace privacy. She has wide experience of industrial relations issues including industrial action; and is well versed in the full range of statutory employment claims.  Claire also acts in claims arising from director, LLP and partnership disputes, notably Tiffin v Lester Aldridge (on partnership status). She has a particular interest in and experience of very high value multi-party TUPE litigation, having appeared in a number of the leading cases on TUPE.

Discrimination and Equal Pay

Claire’s discrimination work spans the fields of employment law, pensions, goods and services, premises and education. She has handled many high-profile and high value discrimination and equal pay cases across a wide range of industries, including the broadcast, financial, technology, pharmaceutical, and transport sectors. Her recent discrimination work has included advising the Government Equalities Office on its July 2019 consultation on sexual harassment in the workplace.

Education Law

Claire regularly advises and represents schools, colleges, universities, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, OFSTED, the Department for Education and individual students in relation to a wide range of education matters, including university regulation and discipline, Ofsted inspections, school closures, early years provision and local authority interventions. Her recent education work has included successfully representing Leicester University in the Court of Appeal in Thilakawardhana v Office of the Independent Adjudicator and University of Leicester [2018] ELR 223, acting for Ofsted in a successful challenge to a High Court order preventing publication of an inspection report, and successfully challenging a decision by a local authority to amend an EHC Plan in R (S) v Camden Borough Council [2019] ELR 129.

Public Law and Judicial Review

Claire is a member of the Attorney General’s A Panel and has been instructed in a wide range of public law cases both for and against local and central government. Her recent public law work has included a successful challenge to pensions regulations which treated men taking unpaid paternity leave and women taking unpaid maternity leave differently (see further details here), the judicial review of the pay award for 120,000 police officers (led by Helen Mountfield QC), and representing Govia in the judicial review claim brought by Southern rail commuters alleging disability discrimination.

International, EU and Human Rights Law

Much of Claire’s work has an international element to it, and she has been instructed in a number of multi-jurisdictional and cross-border disputes. In addition to her work for the UK government, Claire has experience of advising in other common law jurisdictions, and she has advised foreign governments on issues of international human rights law and sovereign immunity arising in the UK.

Many of Claire’s cases involve EU law. Recent significant instructions include acting for HRMC as junior counsel in a group of related appeals, in which a reference to the CJEU is sought.  Claire was called to the Irish Bar in 2018, and will retain her rights of audience in the European Court of Justice and General Court after the UK leaves the EU.

Education and Appointments

Claire studied History at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge University. She has a very good working knowledge of both German and Spanish.

Claire was appointed to the Attorney General’s A Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown in June 2017. She was previously on the B and C Panels.  She is an approved Pupil Supervisor, and sits on a Sub-Committee of the Bar Council’s Equality and Diversity Committee. Claire has been approved as an advocacy trainer for Inner Temple. She was recently elected to the Employment Law Bar Association’s Committee by her contemporaries.

Publications

Claire has lectured and written widely on matters within her expertise. She is co-author of the chapter on Discrimination in Employment in Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Precedents of Pleadings, 18th edition, and the editor of the Practical Law Company’s Guide to Discrimination in the Provision of Goods and Services. She is also co-author of the chapter on the Relationship between Freedom of Information and Data Protection in the Law Society’s Freedom of Information Handbook (3rd edition, December 2012), and was a Contributing Editor of the Education Law Journal from 2012-5. Her article, Procedural Fairness on Appeal: Is O’Cathail No Longer Good Law?, was published in the Industrial Law Journal in September 2016 (Ind Law J (2016) 45 (3) pp 423-43).

Privacy Notice/Standard Terms

Claire is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. In order to provide legal services to clients, including advice and representation services, Claire needs to collect and hold personal data. This includes her client’s personal data and the personal data of others who feature in the matter upon which she is instructed. To read Claire’s privacy notice in full, please see here.

Claire accepts instructions under the Bar Council Standard Contractual Terms, details of which can be found here.

Articles and downloads

• Talk for Employment Law Association of Ireland on Gender Pay Gap Reporting in UK
• Talk for Employment Lawyers’ Association on Whistleblowing and Discrimination Claims involving Directors, Partners and LLPs, June 2019
• Talk for UK’s Employment Lawyers Association on Discrimination Law, December 2018
• Talk for UK’s Employment Lawyers Association on Employment Status, December 2017
• The Territorial Scope of British Statutory Employment Law (at Matrix Employment Seminar, Feb 2017)
• Procedural Fairness on Appeal: Is O’Cathail No Longer Good Law?, Ind Law J (2016) 45 (3) pp 423-43).
• Report on the Situation of Refugees in Zambia, 2005

These articles and downloads are made available for general information purposes only. They do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied on as such advice. The author and Matrix Chambers do not accept responsibility for the continuing accuracy of their contents.