MEET:
Jessica Jones
"The quality of her written work, advocacy, judgment and knowledge of the law is silk-level. She is the best junior public law barrister of her time."
Legal 500
Jessica practises in public law and human rights, crime, extradition and international law. Many of her cases involve issues at the overlap of those areas of law.
Jessica frequently acts for individuals and NGOs in judicial review claims and other public law cases relating to equality and discrimination, social welfare and community care, the criminal justice system, terrorism and national security.
Some of Jessica’s recent cases include:
R (Shamima Begum) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 7; [2021] 2 WLR 556: acting for Shamima Begum in a challenge relating to the Secretary of State’s deprivation of her British citizenship, and challenging the refusal to allow her leave to enter to participate in her appeal.
R (TP, AR and SXC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2020] EWCA Civ 37: a discrimination claim (with Zoe Leventhal) about the impact of the Universal Credit transitional arrangements on severely disabled people. The Court of Appeal upheld the judgments of the High Court in favour of the claimants.
R (Detention Action) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: acting (with Chris Buttler) for Detention Action in a challenge to the Home Secretary’s breach of immigration detainees’ right of access to justice, resulting in the removal of Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detainees from a deportation flight to Jamaica.
R (Salvato) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: [2021] EWHC 102 – successful judicial review (with Chris Buttler) establishing that the proof of payment rule for access to childcare support through Universal Credit is irrational and discriminates against women.
R (Pegram) v Bristol Crown Court and the DPP [2019] EWHC 965 and [2019] EWHC 2673: acting for an anti-racism protestor in a judicial review of the Crown Court’s refusal to state a case, and in a subsequent appeal by way of case stated against his conviction for assaulting a police officer in the course of a protest.
R (Haralambous) v St Albans Crown Court [2018] AC 236: led by Mark Summers QC in a Supreme Court challenge to the lawfulness of using closed material in authorising the issue (and retention of material seized under) a search warrant.
LG v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 1529: a review under s.9 of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 of the lawfulness of the TPIM imposed on LG.
Jessica has also acted in a number of cases relating to women’s rights, the rights of disabled people (including in relation to the procurement of services for disabled people), the rights of ex-offenders, and the duties of local authorities towards homeless people, destitute asylum seekers, and care leavers. She is counsel to the Independent Review of the Governance of Biometric Data, and author of “Criminal Records, Privacy, and the Criminal Justice System” (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Jessica regularly acts in extradition cases in the magistrates and High Court. She has experience of acting on requests from Part 1 and Part 2 countries, including India, Turkey, Thailand, Russia, and the USA.
Alongside her extradition practice, Jessica maintains a mixed criminal and appellate criminal practice predominantly in white collar and business crime, alongside protest and education cases in which human rights issues are engaged.
Examples of her cases include:
- Acting for anti-nuclear protestors in a three-hander trial; acquitted on legal submissions
- Acting for anti-nuclear protestors in an eight-hander trial; four defendants acquitted on legal submissions
- Intervening for Friends of the Earth in the Court of Appeal case of the #Frackfreethree; prison sentences were overturned
- Defending the first ever prosecution under the Education and Skills Act 208 for running an unregistered independent school
- Defending (with Ken Macdonald QC) a multi-million pound insider dealing allegation
- Acting for the appellant Ruddock in the joint Supreme Court/Privy Council Jogee appeal on the law of joint enterprise.
Jessica also advises individuals and corporates on the law of bribery/corruption, fraud and regulatory offences. She is often called on to advise where there is a cross-border or human rights element to the issue.
Jessica acts in Privy Council appeals against conviction and sentence in Caribbean death penalty cases, and is acting in an appeal against conviction in a Ghanaian death penalty case.
Jessica regularly advises states, individuals, companies, and NGOs on international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. She has worked on cases in the International Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, International Criminal Court and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Some of her recent cases include:
The Gambia v Myanmar: acting for The Gambia in an ICJ claim against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Provisional (protective) measures against Myanmar ordered in January 2020.
Guzelyurtlu v Cyprus and Turkey (2019) 69 EHRR 12: led by Clare Montgomery QC, acting for Cyprus on the obligations arising under Article 2 (the right to life) in a murder investigation where a state is under belligerent occupation.
Junqueras v Spain: an application for four Catalan politicians to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in which the Working Group found their detention by Spain was arbitrary and in breach of their rights under the ICCPR.
From 2015-2016, Jessica was judicial assistant to Supreme Court Justice Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore. From 2016-2017, Jessica was legal adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights.
Before becoming a lawyer, Jessica was a community organiser with London Citizens and the Industrial Areas Foundation, working to increase the power of local communities to make change.
BA (Hons) Philosophy, Politics and Economics, First Class, Magdalen College Oxford
Graduate Diploma in Law, Distinction, City University
Bar Professional Training Course, Outstanding, BPP Law School
Lord Mansfield Scholarship, Lincoln’s Inn
Megarry Scholarship, Lincoln’s Inn
Buchanan Prize, Lincoln’s Inn
Hardwicke Award, Lincoln’s Inn
Phoenicia Scholarship, Bar European Group
Tutorial Prize, Magdalen College
Jessica is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. In order to provide legal services to her clients, including advice and representation services, Jessica needs to collect and hold personal data. Jessica’s Privacy Notice contains full details of when, why and how she will store and process personal data. To read her Privacy Notice, please click here.
"Jessica is very clever and good at putting complicated cases across." "Jessica is a very academically able lawyer, who marries this with passion."
"A fiercely committed advocate. Her advice is crystal-clear and she is calm, clever and strategic. A fabulous junior."
"She led things from the front and made it very easy to manage even complex cases with a lot of material. She has a very good sense of what you should be focusing on strategically. Often her advice is silk level."
"Jessica is wise beyond her years." "She is very collaborative: she takes a genuine team approach to her work."
"Her grasp of the law and analytical skills are extremely impressive and she turns things around at an incredible speed. She is also really approachable and collaborative." "She is very talented and efficient and has excellent drafting skills." "Jessica is impressively clever and hard-working."
"The quality of her written work, advocacy, judgment and knowledge of the law is silk-level. She is the best junior public law barrister of her time. Jessica is definitely a future silk."
"Jessica is exceptionally clever, industrious, efficient and focused. She is undoubtedly a rising star."
"Jessica is hard working and intelligent. Her written submissions are exceptional and she has a real talent for managing and meeting the expectations of clients."
"Jessica Jones is a superb opponent to have; she is tough, reasonable and easy to deal with." "She is a very astute, clever and ambitious barrister."
"Incredibly sharp, wise beyond her years and an absolute joy to work with." "She comes with innovative thinking and creative arguments."
"Very succinct, and her submissions are really strong. She's always really accommodating, and gave really clear and useful advice which helped us greatly."
"She is intelligent, industrious, and tactically very good. She handles cases way above her call with ease. A future star of the extradition Bar."
"Highly intelligent, with excellent analytical ability, she writes extremely well, and works very well as part of a team."
"The quality of her written work is unparalleled for any junior of her level. Jessica is efficient, diligent and has excellent attention to detail. Apart from being wise far beyond her years, she is also an absolute pleasure to work with."
"Delivers at the standard of someone who is twice as experienced."
"Exceptionally bright and her drafting skills are second to none."
MAIN AREAS OF PRACTICE:
- Civil Liberties and Human Rights
- Commercial Law
- Commercial Public Law
- Crime
- Election Law
- Equality and Discrimination Law
- Extradition and Mutual Assistance
- Fraud and Financial Crime
- Health and Social Care (including welfare benefits)
- Immigration, Asylum and Free Movement
- Investigatory Powers
- Police, Inquests and Prison
- Private International Law
- Protest Law
- Public International Law
- Public Law
+44 (0)20 7404 3447
"The quality of her written work, advocacy, judgment and knowledge of the law is silk-level. She is the best junior public law barrister of her time."
Legal 500
MAIN AREAS OF PRACTICE
- Commercial Law
- Crime
- Election Law
- Extradition and Mutual Assistance
- Fraud and Financial Crime
- Civil Liberties and Human Rights
- Immigration, Asylum and Free Movement
- Public International Law
- Public Law
- Protest Law
- Investigatory Powers
- Police, Inquests and Prison
- Health and Social Care (including welfare benefits)
- Commercial Public Law
- Private International Law
- Equality and Discrimination Law
Jessica Jones
Contact Jessica: jessicajones@matrixlaw.co.uk | +44 (0)20 7404 3447
Contact Jessica's Practice Team (Team T): TeamT@matrixlaw.co.uk
Jessica practises in public law and human rights, crime, extradition and international law. Many of her cases involve issues at the overlap of those areas of law.
Public law and human rights
Jessica frequently acts for individuals and NGOs in judicial review claims and other public law cases relating to equality and discrimination, social welfare and community care, the criminal justice system, terrorism and national security.
Some of Jessica’s recent cases include:
R (Shamima Begum) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 7; [2021] 2 WLR 556: acting for Shamima Begum in a challenge relating to the Secretary of State’s deprivation of her British citizenship, and challenging the refusal to allow her leave to enter to participate in her appeal.
R (TP, AR and SXC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2020] EWCA Civ 37: a discrimination claim (with Zoe Leventhal) about the impact of the Universal Credit transitional arrangements on severely disabled people. The Court of Appeal upheld the judgments of the High Court in favour of the claimants.
R (Detention Action) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: acting (with Chris Buttler) for Detention Action in a challenge to the Home Secretary’s breach of immigration detainees’ right of access to justice, resulting in the removal of Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detainees from a deportation flight to Jamaica.
R (Salvato) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: [2021] EWHC 102 – successful judicial review (with Chris Buttler) establishing that the proof of payment rule for access to childcare support through Universal Credit is irrational and discriminates against women.
R (Pegram) v Bristol Crown Court and the DPP [2019] EWHC 965 and [2019] EWHC 2673: acting for an anti-racism protestor in a judicial review of the Crown Court’s refusal to state a case, and in a subsequent appeal by way of case stated against his conviction for assaulting a police officer in the course of a protest.
R (Haralambous) v St Albans Crown Court [2018] AC 236: led by Mark Summers QC in a Supreme Court challenge to the lawfulness of using closed material in authorising the issue (and retention of material seized under) a search warrant.
LG v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWHC 1529: a review under s.9 of the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act 2011 of the lawfulness of the TPIM imposed on LG.
Jessica has also acted in a number of cases relating to women’s rights, the rights of disabled people (including in relation to the procurement of services for disabled people), the rights of ex-offenders, and the duties of local authorities towards homeless people, destitute asylum seekers, and care leavers. She is counsel to the Independent Review of the Governance of Biometric Data, and author of “Criminal Records, Privacy, and the Criminal Justice System” (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Crime and extradition
Jessica regularly acts in extradition cases in the magistrates and High Court. She has experience of acting on requests from Part 1 and Part 2 countries, including India, Turkey, Thailand, Russia, and the USA.
Alongside her extradition practice, Jessica maintains a mixed criminal and appellate criminal practice predominantly in white collar and business crime, alongside protest and education cases in which human rights issues are engaged.
Examples of her cases include:
- Acting for anti-nuclear protestors in a three-hander trial; acquitted on legal submissions
- Acting for anti-nuclear protestors in an eight-hander trial; four defendants acquitted on legal submissions
- Intervening for Friends of the Earth in the Court of Appeal case of the #Frackfreethree; prison sentences were overturned
- Defending the first ever prosecution under the Education and Skills Act 208 for running an unregistered independent school
- Defending (with Ken Macdonald QC) a multi-million pound insider dealing allegation
- Acting for the appellant Ruddock in the joint Supreme Court/Privy Council Jogee appeal on the law of joint enterprise.
Jessica also advises individuals and corporates on the law of bribery/corruption, fraud and regulatory offences. She is often called on to advise where there is a cross-border or human rights element to the issue.
Jessica acts in Privy Council appeals against conviction and sentence in Caribbean death penalty cases, and is acting in an appeal against conviction in a Ghanaian death penalty case.
International law
Jessica regularly advises states, individuals, companies, and NGOs on international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. She has worked on cases in the International Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights, International Criminal Court and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Some of her recent cases include:
The Gambia v Myanmar: acting for The Gambia in an ICJ claim against Myanmar under the Genocide Convention. Provisional (protective) measures against Myanmar ordered in January 2020.
Guzelyurtlu v Cyprus and Turkey (2019) 69 EHRR 12: led by Clare Montgomery QC, acting for Cyprus on the obligations arising under Article 2 (the right to life) in a murder investigation where a state is under belligerent occupation.
Junqueras v Spain: an application for four Catalan politicians to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in which the Working Group found their detention by Spain was arbitrary and in breach of their rights under the ICCPR.
Other experience
From 2015-2016, Jessica was judicial assistant to Supreme Court Justice Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore. From 2016-2017, Jessica was legal adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights.
Before becoming a lawyer, Jessica was a community organiser with London Citizens and the Industrial Areas Foundation, working to increase the power of local communities to make change.
Academic Qualifications and Prizes
BA (Hons) Philosophy, Politics and Economics, First Class, Magdalen College Oxford
Graduate Diploma in Law, Distinction, City University
Bar Professional Training Course, Outstanding, BPP Law School
Lord Mansfield Scholarship, Lincoln’s Inn
Megarry Scholarship, Lincoln’s Inn
Buchanan Prize, Lincoln’s Inn
Hardwicke Award, Lincoln’s Inn
Phoenicia Scholarship, Bar European Group
Tutorial Prize, Magdalen College
Jessica's Privacy Notice
Jessica is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. In order to provide legal services to her clients, including advice and representation services, Jessica needs to collect and hold personal data. Jessica’s Privacy Notice contains full details of when, why and how she will store and process personal data. To read her Privacy Notice, please click here.
DIRECTORY RECOMMENDATIONS
"Jessica is very clever and good at putting complicated cases across." "Jessica is a very academically able lawyer, who marries this with passion."
"A fiercely committed advocate. Her advice is crystal-clear and she is calm, clever and strategic. A fabulous junior."
"She led things from the front and made it very easy to manage even complex cases with a lot of material. She has a very good sense of what you should be focusing on strategically. Often her advice is silk level."
"Jessica is wise beyond her years." "She is very collaborative: she takes a genuine team approach to her work."
"Her grasp of the law and analytical skills are extremely impressive and she turns things around at an incredible speed. She is also really approachable and collaborative." "She is very talented and efficient and has excellent drafting skills." "Jessica is impressively clever and hard-working."
"The quality of her written work, advocacy, judgment and knowledge of the law is silk-level. She is the best junior public law barrister of her time. Jessica is definitely a future silk."
"Jessica is exceptionally clever, industrious, efficient and focused. She is undoubtedly a rising star."
"Jessica is hard working and intelligent. Her written submissions are exceptional and she has a real talent for managing and meeting the expectations of clients."
"Jessica Jones is a superb opponent to have; she is tough, reasonable and easy to deal with." "She is a very astute, clever and ambitious barrister."
"Incredibly sharp, wise beyond her years and an absolute joy to work with." "She comes with innovative thinking and creative arguments."
"Very succinct, and her submissions are really strong. She's always really accommodating, and gave really clear and useful advice which helped us greatly."
"She is intelligent, industrious, and tactically very good. She handles cases way above her call with ease. A future star of the extradition Bar."
"Highly intelligent, with excellent analytical ability, she writes extremely well, and works very well as part of a team."
"The quality of her written work is unparalleled for any junior of her level. Jessica is efficient, diligent and has excellent attention to detail. Apart from being wise far beyond her years, she is also an absolute pleasure to work with."
"Delivers at the standard of someone who is twice as experienced."
"Exceptionally bright and her drafting skills are second to none."