"Ben is a joy to watch in the tribunal. His forensic research skills, brilliant preparation and understanding of complex claims are all highly impressive and reassuring to clients."
Chambers & Partners 2024
"Ben is an exceptional advocate. He always remains calm, even in the most testing of cases, and has an excellent ability to make lay clients feel at ease and involved in proceedings."
The legal 500 2024
'Ben is a junior of choice. He is immeasurably intelligent, and with forensic research skills and a creative intelligence; and he combines these attributes with a thoroughly pragmatic approach to litigation. He is is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get involved in the detail, working closely with clients to understand their litigation goals. Ben is also empathetic, and measured with professional and lay clients alike at a level that belies his years of call. A real star in the making.'
The Legal 500 2023
"We are confident in the legal and practical advice he gives. He is a very popular counsel with our clients, and excellent with difficult claimants and litigants."
Ben is recognised in Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500 2022 as a leading practitioner at the London Employment bar. He is described as “an exceptionally intelligent barrister with forensic research skills’ who “can think outside the box” and as being “intelligent, calm, and unruffled”.
Ben’s expertise spans all areas of employment law and into adjacent areas of professional discipline, and commercial dispute. He regularly conducts investigations and internal processes.
Career highlights include:
Acting as the junior member of the counsel team for a supermarket in one of the major ongoing equal pay claims;
Acting as junior investigator in numerous high profile investigations that received national press coverage;
Acting as sole investigator in numerous other confidential and sensitive processes for commercial, academic, and third sector clients;
Defending numerous household names in litigation (including FTSE listed companies, internationally recognised academic institutions, and Trade Unions – in disputes with their former employees);
Successfully defending dozens of NHS Trusts before the Employment Tribunal; and
Numerous appellate appearances spanning the Privy Council, Court of Appeal, Employment Appeal Tribunal, and Upper Tribunal (including leading cases on fundamental points regarding limitation in pay claims, fairness in internal disciplinary processes, the scope of statutory appeals against orders for erasure from the medical register, the scope of statutory appeals against barring decisions by the DBS, admissibility of evidence in discrimination proceedings, and costs).
Academic Background
Oxford University
DPhil (Law Faculty)
Freshfields Scholar
Retained Lecturer in Law (Pembroke College)
Law Tutor (St Hugh’s College)
Cambridge University
MPhil in Sociology (Ethico-legal/biosciences focus)
MA in Natural Sciences (Biological/Biomedical sciences focus)
Faculté Libre de Droit, Paris – Visiting Lecturer in Law
City University, Bar Professional Training Course
Grays Inn – Lord Uthwatt scholar
College of Law, Graduate Diploma in Law
Ben has contributed to various academic publications, including co-authoring chapters in recently published EU-funded work on comparative labour law.
Professional Recommendations
“Ben is a joy to watch in the tribunal. His forensic research skills, brilliant preparation and understanding of complex claims are all highly impressive and reassuring to clients.”
Chambers & Partners 2024
“Ben is a promising junior with good technical, client care and advocacy skills. He is very good at adjusting his style for different types of hearings and has had excellent results for us.”
Chambers & Partners 2024
“Ben is a client favourite and works well with witnesses, delivering excellent results at tribunal and providing commercially sound advice more generally.”
Chambers & Partners 2024
“Ben is an exceptional advocate. He always remains calm, even in the most testing of cases, and has an excellent ability to make lay clients feel at ease and involved in proceedings.”
The Legal 500 2024
“We are confident in the legal and practical advice he gives. He is a very popular counsel with our clients, and excellent with difficult claimants and litigants.”
Chambers & Partners 2023
‘Ben is a junior of choice. He is immeasurably intelligent, and with forensic research skills and a creative intelligence; and he combines these attributes with a thoroughly pragmatic approach to litigation. He is is not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get involved in the detail, working closely with clients to understand their litigation goals. Ben is also empathetic, and measured with professional and lay clients alike at a level that belies his years of call. A real star in the making.’
The Legal 500 2023
“Ben is a junior of choice. He has forensic research skills, combined with a can-do attitude and a creative intelligence – he will go far.”
The Legal 500 2022
“He is good with clients and he spends time thinking through the issues and the risks.” “He is technically on the ball, he reassures the clients, he is clear in his advocacy, and he is calm and collected.”
Chambers & Partners 2022
“Ben is an exceptionally intelligent barrister with forensic research skills. He displays a lively and creative intelligence in discussions about cases and can think outside the box when presented with new problems. I am certain that Ben will go far – he is a real star in the making.”
The Legal 500 2021
Expertise
Employment & Discrimination
Ben advises and represents parties in matters spanning the range of statutory employment disputes. He frequently appears in multi-week trials dealing with legally complex, factually intensive, and high value disputes.
Ben is in demand for his meticulous preparation and incisive cross-examination. He is instructed not only for his ability to secure positive outcomes in difficult cases, but also for his reassuring, straight forward, and user-friendly manner with clients and witnesses.
Ben also appears regularly at appellate level. He has successfully brought and resisted various appeals in the EAT and has been led in high profile and widely reported decisions of the Court of Appeal (including Burn v Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust [2021] EWCA Civ 1791, [2022] ICR 492, [2022] I.R.L.R. 306, (2022) 184 B.M.L.R. 108 and Coletta v Bath Hill Court [2019] EWCA Civ 1707, [2020] 3 All E.R. 59, [2020] I.C.R. 703, [2020] I.R.L.R. 124).
Before coming to the Bar, Ben also worked on labour law as an academic lawyer. In this mode, he attended various international conferences to present papers on UK employment law and he continues to contribute to publications in the field.
Investigations and Internal Processes
Ben regularly accepts instructions to conduct all forms of internal processes in the workplace.
His recent experience includes:
Investigating various grievances brought by senior/director level employees (both as sole/lead investigator and as a member of a multi-investigator team);
Investigating allegations of misconduct (including various forms of alleged discrimination/harassment) by staff in public, private and third sector organisations;
Investigating allegations by members of the public in respect of the provision of goods and services (including making recommendations for further action in respect of involved staff and also identifying institutional issues);
Conducting appeal processes in respect of decisions made by internal decision makers;
Investigating union rule book complaints; and
Acting in MHPS proceedings (at consultant level) on both sides (as well as acting, led, in MHPS-related High Court proceedings).
Ben has conducted such processes for publicly listed firms, SMEs, charities, a regulator, universities, private schools, and unions.
Professional Regulatory & Discipline
Ben has experience of matters progressing before various regulators (from initial investigations, through interim-orders hearings, to final disposal).
He appeared in the leading case on the scope of the right of appeal to the High Court against the sanction of erasure (Sastry and Okpara v GMC [2021] EWCA Civ 623, Times Law Reports 21 May 2021, led by Nicola Newbegin).
As noted under ‘internal processes’, above, as well as having acted on behalf of senior medical practitioners and NHS Trusts in employment proceedings, Ben has also been instructed in internal disciplinary proceedings by Trust management. Ben has hands-on experience of cases involving overlapping processes (including counter-fraud and criminal investigations alongside internal disciplinary and other employment disputes).
Ben also has a history of engagement with medical practitioners stretching long before his call to the bar (through his academic research on, and volunteering work in relation to, the regulation of stem-cell research).
DBS Appeals
Ben has been instructed in various appeals by professionals who have been included on a barring list by the DBS. He appeared (led by Betsan Criddle KC) in the then leading decision on the nature and extent of the Upper Tribunal’s jurisdiction to correct errors of fact (PF v DBS [2020] UKUT 256 (AAC)).
Commercial Employment
Ben has a broad grounding in civil employment disputes. He advises on the enforceability of restrictive covenants, protection of confidential information/database rights, and any form of contractual dispute arising out of working relationships.
He has been led in urgent/complex injunctive proceedings before the High Court and is experienced in advising (unled) on civil litigation procedure (including costs budgeting) as well as on issues arising around multi-process disputes (such as those involving overlapping contractual, statutory employment, criminal, and/or regulatory dimensions).
