Manchester Employment Seminar 2024

Jessica Franklin, 12KBW

Jessica is experienced in whistleblowing, discrimination and unfair dismissal claims and those involving psychiatric injury. Jessica is instructed in multi-day employment trials alongside her paperwork practice. She was recently sole counsel for the claimant in a 7-day full merits hearing.

In December 2022 Jessica represented 51 claimants in Rollett & Ors v British Airways Plc (3315412/2020), led by Martina Murphy. During the two-day Preliminary Hearing, the Employment Tribunal found it had jurisdiction to hear associative indirect discrimination claims (applying CHEZ Razpredelenie Bulgaria AD v Komisia za zashtita ot diskriminatsia (ECJ)). This case is reported in the latest edition of Harvey.

Jessica is instructed on the appeal of Rollett, led by Martina Murphy, to be heard in the EAT (President’s List) in July 2024.

Jessica acted for the successful claimant (led by Tim Goodwin) in a preliminary hearing on the Employment Tribunal’s jurisdiction, applicable law, and the territorial reach of the ERA 1996. The claim was brought by a Danish national living and working in Denmark. The Tribunal found that the ERA extended to the claimant and that it had jurisdiction to hear his claims.

Jessica has spoken on the protection of gender critical beliefs under the EqA 2010, the development of associative indirect discrimination, and on the distinction between belief and its manifestation. She has written for the ELA Briefing on social class as a protected characteristic, and on associative indirect discrimination under CHEZ.

Kweku Aggrey-Orleans, 12KBW

Kweku regularly advises and represents both Claimants and Respondents before the employment tribunals, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the county courts, all in matters arising from the employment relationship. His experience encompasses claims for unfair dismissal (redundancy and misconduct), discrimination (particularly race, sex and disability), whistleblowing cases together with claims involving the enforcement of restrictive covenants and anti- competitive behaviour by employers.

Kweku’s Claimant clients have included senior bank executives, police officers, trade union representatives, government workers and individuals working within the financial services sector. His employer clients have included several banks, local authorities, firms of solicitors and SMEs.

Kweku has acted in a number of high profile cases, and of late has been involved in a topical longstanding race and sexual orientation discrimination claim against the Metropolitan police in which he has enjoyed success before the Employment Tribunal and on appeal before the EAT: Maxwell v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2013] Eq LR 680.

Further recent cases have involved establishing the extent of a bank’s duty to make reasonable adjustments for a long serving manager with a disability and successfully establishing direct age discrimination against Barratt Homes in the conduct of its redundancy procedure.

Kweku provides helpful lectures on the extent of the duty to make reasonable adjustments to employer and solicitor clients. He also frequently lectures on the preparatory steps an employee can undertake to set up in competition with his/ her current employer.

Laura Robinson, 12KBW

Laura Robinson is an employment specialist who represents large corporations, SME’s, public and government bodies, local authorities and private individuals. Laura can advise on all aspects of employment law, but has a strong reputation in discrimination, whistleblowing, unfair dismissal, TUPE and breach of contract claims. Laura appears in Tribunals and Courts at all levels. Laura is a member of the Attorney General’s A Panel of Counsel. 

“Laura has excellent technical skills, and understands and considers detailed and complicated legal points with serenity. She is extremely clear in her advice and her advocacy is very persuasive.” – Legal 500, 2024

Ghazaleh Rezaie, 12KBW

Prior to coming to the Bar, Ghazaleh enjoyed a successful career as a paralegal in the field of Employment Law and she continues to undertake work in all areas of employment law including unfair and wrongful dismissal, discrimination, whistle-blowing, TUPE, employment status, working time, unlawful deduction of wages, maternity and paternity rights and breach of contract. She has experience at all levels of the Employment Tribunal and has advised and appeared in cases involving employment disputes in the Employment Tribunal, the County Court and the High Court.

She is particularly familiar with race, sex and disability discrimination claims brought by high-ranking police officers against police forces across the country having been involved in high-profile cases in the past (Yip –v- CC of Merseyside Police; Singh –v- CC of Greater Manchester Police; Ul-Haq –v- CC of Greater Manchester Police).

Ghazaleh has been involved in cases where the hearing has lasted for periods of up to 4 weeks demonstrating her ability to retain large amounts of information in order to prepare lengthy written submissions.

Ghazaleh has developed a solid practice in Scottish Employment Tribunal cases and is familiar with and confident in preparing for such cases given the procedural differences between Scottish and English Employment Tribunal hearings.

Ghazaleh also has particular experience of claims against Local Authorities making her sensitive to the wider implications of claims against the Local Authority both in terms of reputation and commercial realities.

Ghazaleh’s recent cases include:

Hemdan –v- Ismail – The case is due to be heard by the President of the EAT in November (Ghazaleh will be appearing for the Respondent) to set guidance for Employment Tribunals in the granting of Deposit Orders.

Thurston –v- Wilkinson Hardware Stores Limited – The claim raised an interesting point of law as to whether or not disability discrimination can ever arise where there is an absence policy with trigger points.

Grant –v- Belgica (1) and Kartono (2) – A Scottish Employment Tribunal case for sex discrimination, sexual harassment, victimisation and constructive dismissal  involving 17 days of evidence with a complicated chronology and factual matrix. All claims against the Respondents for whom Ghazaleh was acting were dismissed in their entirety.

David Green, 12KBW

David is ranked for employment law in the Legal 500. “The quality of David’s advice and his legal knowledge has always been excellent.’ (Legal 500 2024).

David has broad employment law expertise and is an experienced advocate in the Employment and Employment Appeal Tribunals. He is an assured advocate who appears in high-value, multi-day disputes, with or without a leader, for both Claimants and Respondents.

David is a contributing editor to Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law (the leading practitioner textbook for employment lawyers), and is a member of the executive committee of the Employment Law Bar Association.

He is a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s “C” Panel of Counsel.

David appears and advises in all areas of employment practice, including:

• Whistleblowing claims
• Direct and indirect discrimination across all protected characteristics
• Failure to make reasonable adjustments and discrimination arising from disability
• Business protection, restrictive covenants and confidential information (including injunctive relief)
• Interim relief
• Pregnancy and maternity claims
• Equal pay
• TUPE
• Wages and unlawful deductions
• Unfair dismissal
• Redundancy

David has broad expertise advising on substantive, procedural and jurisdictional issues. He appears in final hearings, preliminary hearings and mediations around the country.

Lynsey Barrow, Clyde & Co

Lynsey is a Legal Director in the Employment Team of Clyde & Co.

Lynsey has a strong background in Employment Tribunal litigation and significant experience acting and advising in relation to a variety of employment law matters.

She has extensive experience providing advice to a range of sectors, including public sector clients within the education, healthcare and emergency services sectors.

Lynsey has also worked on a number of high profile/sensitive public sector cases involving senior executives and medical professionals, assisting in a range of internal disputes/seeking to resolve difficult internal procedures and experience in providing employment law training for HR specialists.

Lynsey has experience dealing in all matters of employee relations, trade union activity and conduct of a range of complex cases in the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal and has also assisted with cases in the Court of Appeal.