They offer unparalleled legal knowledge and advice to clients at critical moments during disputes providing practical effective solutions including unparalleled litigation expertise.
Many decisions taken by public bodies are subject to challenge in the Courts, whether in the form of judicial review, or other statutory challenge procedures.
Challenges of this nature are specialised have strict timescales and rules that must be adhered to, and cover a wide range of sectors, including:
- Real estate and planning;
- Local authority decision making;
- Challenges to regulatory decision making;
- Healthcare and NHS;
- Education
Our team has an outstanding reputation in this field with a proven track record on how best to frame, or respond to, any required challenge.
Our lawyers represent defendants (including public bodies, NHS trusts and local authorities), claimants (private individuals, businesses or other organisations) and interested parties (those directly affected by a decision, such as developers).
For commercial organisations, judicial review can be an important tool for holding public bodies and regulators to account and protecting key commercial interests.
Our experience extends to representing clients at all levels of the court system including the European Court of Human Rights.
Our aim is to use our experience to resolve challenges at the earliest possible stage, but we also have a wealth of expertise should the case goes to Court.
Our experience
- Acting for and advising various local authorities, NHS trusts and other public bodies in relation to all aspects of their decision making processes. For instance:
- Acting in a high profile case for a local authority in relation to a challenge to its proposed allocation of resource within its social care budget.
- Acting for an NHS trust in a challenge to a decision to close a mental health hospital.
- Representing a local authority in a High Court challenge to against the government’s decision to cancel funding for the construction of new schools.
- Acting for a range of NHS trust organisations, local authorities and school academies, in a variety of challenges often involving alleged breaches of statutory duty to provide healthcare, social care, housing, or education.
- Advising in relation to challenges to decisions relating to continuing healthcare for children.
- Advising a judicially reviewable body in relation to challenges to immigration visa endorsement decisions.
- Acting for commercial organisations or individuals as claimants or interested parties, including:
- Advising an industrial chemicals plant in relation to steps taken by the Environment Agency relating to the application of non-leakage status under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme.
- Acting for house builders, social housing providers and other real estate developers in relation to challenges to real estate and planning decisions taken by local planning authorities and other public bodies.
- Acting for a commercial student housing operator in relation to a decision taken regarding the assessment of council tax on student flats in Wales.
- Representing a social housing provider in a challenge brought against the Regulator in respect of a decision to take regulatory action.
- Acting for a mining company as an interested party in a high profile judicial review brought against the grant of planning permission for a new deep coking coal mine in West Cumbria.
- Acting for an industrial services company in a challenge to its environmental waste licence and planning permission allowing it to decommission and re-cycle ex-military vessels.
- Representing private individuals or organisations in relation to decisions taken by public bodies, including in the health, education and immigration sectors.