Practice

David has a mixed civil practice with a central emphasis on challenging inequality and discrimination. His main areas of practice are as follows:

Employment

David represents claimants in employment claims in the civil courts, and in dismissals and all strands of discrimination claim at the Tribunal and the EAT, including in lengthy, complex and high value cases, and also in regulatory and disciplinary hearings.

David recently appeared for Dave Smith, in a high-profile blacklisting claim. David represented Mr Smith at a PHR where time was extended to allow the claimant to bring a claim even though the blacklisting about which he complained had begun as long ago as 1998. David then represented Mr Smith at a full merits hearing where the Respondents admitted discrimination and detriment but the claim failed as Mr Smith was not found not to be the Respondents' employee. Press reports in Mirror(here and here), Guardian and Observer.

Other notable cases

Ross v Eddie Stobart Ltd [2011] EAT/0085/10. David represented the appellant who successfully argued that the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations are enforceable through a whistleblowing claim.

Small v Barking Havering And Redbridge NHS Trust [2011] All ER (D) 18 (Jun), EAT, David represented the appellant who successfully argued that where a claimant passed the first stage of the reversal of the burden of proof exercise the respondent's evidence at the second stage must be compelling.

Kurumuth v NHS Trust North Middlesex University Hospital [2011] EAT/0524/10. The appellant succeeded in a claim for unlawful deduction of wages, but a Polkey deduction was upheld, where an employer wrongly but reasonably believed that the appellant had no legal right to work in the UK.

Housing

David acts for tenants and mortgagors in possession hearings, including cases where possession is defended on human rights grounds. He also appears in disrepair cases and homelessness appeals.

He has recently been instructed in a number of cases where squatters have defended claims for possession, including Sun Street Properties Ltd v Persons Unknown [2011] EHC 3432 (Ch) and EWCA Civ 1672 (judgment on Casetrack), in which David (led by Stephen Knafler QC) was junior counsel for the UBS occupiers. The occupiers failed in an article 10 defence to a possession claim, but were granted permission to appeal, eventually settling the case two months after the possession order was made.

Other notable cases

V- and S- v P- and ors, Willesden County Court, November 2011
David successfully represtented a purported squatter defending an application for an interim possession order; the court finding that the landlord had had more than 42 days' notice of the occupation of land.

M- v P- and T-, Uxbridge County Court November 2011
David successfully represented a defendant who occupied bed and breakfast rooms granted to them on a temporary basis under the homelessness legislation. The landlord maintained that they were a squatter and sought accelerated possession under CPR 55. The court held that there was a prime facie case that the occupier was a tenant under a lease and declined to make a possession order.

Woldeab v London Borough of Southwark, Legal Action, November 2011
David successfully represented the tenant in a case where the Court held that reasonable enquiries had not been made where an applicant for homeless housing sought the delay of a decision pending an expert medical report, and the authority's medical officer stated that further medical evidence was required.

Family

David is instructed by family members in private family cases in the FPC, the county court and the High Court, including contact, residence and special guardianship cases, and in injunctions for non-molestation or occupation orders, and in applications to remove from the jurisdiction.

David has also written on occupation orders and on contact applications for the Garden Court family law blog.

Notable cases

E- v B-A-, Woolwich County Court, December 2011
David represented the father in a successful application to transfer residence; despite maternal grandmother having obtained interim residence at a previous hearing before the same judge just six months before.

R- v R-, Hitchin County Court, June 2011
Injunction granted prohibiting father from serving a notice to quit terminating a joint tenancy. Bater v Greenwich London Borough Council [1999] 2 FLR 993 applied to transfer of tenancy. David represented the mother. (The transfer of tenancy was ordered by consent at a subsequent final hearing).

K- v K-, Luton County Court, April 2011
David represented the mother in a successful (but fully contested) application to take a child out of the jurisdiction to a non-Hague country.

Background

Before being called to the bar, David was a senior researcher, and visiting professor in history and sociology at universities in the UK and South Africa. He published several books, including a biography of the Trindiadian activist and historian of cricket, CLR James. He was a lay representative and then a national official of the lecturer's union Natfhe (now UCU). He left to retrain as a lawyer, working for two years at a busy London law centre, where his high-profile cases included Fullerton v Interights International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights [2010] EAT/0251/09.

Legal Publications

Books

Struck out: Why Employment Tribunals fail workers and what can be done (London: Pluto Press, 2012). David maintains a blog supporting the book here.

Articles

A compassionate ruling, Inside Housing, 11 May 2012
Tribunals and tribulations, New Law Journal, 27 April 2012
(With Jan Luba QC) The Localism Act 2011: security of tenure in social housing, Legal Action Journal, February 2012
Waging war, New Law Journal, 9 December 2011
Keep on trucking, New Law Journal, 17 June 2011
Deliver us from Employment Tribunal hell? Employment law, industrial relations and the Employment Bill (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Business School, 2008)

In October 2011 David presented the Garden Court seminar on Disrepair: Penetration, Infestation and Hibernation.

David is also (with Shereener Browne) one of the editors of Garden Court's Employment Law Bulletin

Professional Memberships

Discrimination Law Association
Employment Law Bar Association
Family Law Bar Association
Housing Emergency
Housing Law Practitioners Association and Junior HLPA
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (committee)
Industrial Law Society

Training

David has provided training in employment law for organisations including the UCU trade union, various trades councils, branches of the GMB, Unison, and Unite unions and to students on MA, undergraduate and vocational courses.

Profile last updated May 2012

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