Profile description
Areas of law:
- Employment (including discrimination)
- Professional Regulatory
- Commercial (including regulatory, injunctions and contractual matters)
- Defamation, media, data-protection and privacy
- Banking & Financial Services
- Discrimination
- Intellectual property (copyright and trademarks)
- Judicial Review (especially in a Human Rights context)
- Insurance and re-insurance
Employment Law
Amanda is an experienced employment law specialist, having undertaken over 20 years' work throughout the UK on employment and employment related issues, for both Claimants (employees) and Respondents (employers). Amanda's extensive Employment Tribunal experience includes claims for the following:
- Unfair dismissal
- Breach of contract
- Age discrimination
- Race discrimination
- Religious discrimination
- Sex discrimination
- Pregnancy discrimination
- Whistleblowing
- Redundancy
- Contractual disputes
- Equal pay
- TUPE
In addition to her ET practice, Amanda has also appeared in the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) on numerous occasions, representing clients in appeal hearings. She also accepts instructions to advise and represent clients in relation to breach of contract and civil discrimination claims in the County Court.
Amanda has represented clients in multi-claimant cases, including 20 claimants in one instance, and defending a pensions issue involving over 11,000 employees. Her work includes regulatory advice/compliance issues, and personal injury in the context of employment law.
Professional Regulation
Amanda has many years' experience of advising and representing clients in relation to a wide range of professional regulatory proceedings before a number of different panels, with a focus on cases arising out of the healthcare sector. Amanda is most frequently instructed on cases before the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) but she is happy to consider accepting instructions relating to proceedings before any professional regulatory body.
Commercial Litigation
Amanda is frequently instructed to provide advice and representation in cases in the county and high courts, and appeals, with a particular emphasis on business and commercial matters. She accepts instructions to advise, prepare and represent business clients in relation to all manner of commercial injunctions before the High Court.
Amanda advises on copyright law issues with particular expertise in the media sector. She advises on pre-litigation copyright and trademark enforcement matters including ‘cease & desist’ letters and negotiation of copyright infringement settlement agreements. She also represents parties in intellectual property proceedings in contested court hearings.
She has 18 years’ experience of commercial litigation and particularly enjoys ‘out of time’ applications, complex legal applications and challenges, injunctive proceedings, judicial review proceedings, human rights arguments, and contractual disputes. Amanda also offers extensive experience of disputes between insurers and policy holders, including high-value commercial claims.
Unusual cases have included:
- Permission to appeal granted to pursue an action against a high street bank for breach of trust
- Dispute of ownership of a small airplane held on trust by a third party
- Psychiatric injury arising from breach of duty by employer
- Breach of contract in delivery of a vessel
- Obtaining an Interim Injunction to prevent a performer from breaching copyright and IP
She has also advised on and defended cases referred to the CJEU.
Media Law
Amanda's client base includes various film and television companies that instruct her to advise in relation to all manner of contractial issues. She has also negotiated contracts for her media clients (including employment contracts, contracts engaging actors, artists and ‘reality TV’ people). Amanda has worked regularly for media clients (actors, musicians and a music company) and her work has included contracts, injunctions and defamation. She is the private lawyer for Navi and the lawyer for Showtime Productions.
Background
Amanda attended both universities in Leeds, reading law, followed by a Masters in European Legal Studies under Professors John Bell and Jo Shaw in 1997. She then read Latin at Leeds, while she worked as a volunteer legal advisor for the Citizens Advice Bureau. Within months, Amanda was trained as the Employment Rights Officer, representing clients in tribunal proceedings. Her first court hearing was in the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
In 1999, Amanda attended BPP Law School in London achieving a VC and was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in July 2000. She gained pupillage with J. Henry Trumpington at Staple Inn Chambers, where she undertook criminal, civil, and commercial work. As a result of her legal experience, Amanda was given dispensation by the Bar Council and qualified early (8 months instead of the standard 12) and was immediately offered tenancy at 169 Temple Avenue, Chambers of the late Evan Ashfield, where she practised civil and commercial litigation, with an emphasis on insurance law and employment law.
Amanda joined Broadway House Chambers, as part of the Employment Team in Leeds, alongside undertaking commercial chancery work, for several years before returning to London. As part of that team she delivered seminars and training to solicitors and local authorities, which she continues to offer.
Following her return to London, Amanda set up her own Chambers alongside working with solicitors' firms and companies, during which she has continued to practice employment law and civil and commercial litigation, as well as providing private training and undertaking Pro Bono work.
In 2019 Amanda trained with the London School of Mediation and is an Accredited Mediator. She spends her spare time writing and has written several books including Brexit A2Z: Facts Not Fiction (designed for lay people), her articles appear regularly in the Yorkshire Bylines and she has co-authored several articles in the New Law Journal with David Wolchover.
