Robert is a Partner in the Employment department and Head of the Firm's Education Group. He advises clients on a wide range of employment-related matters such as discrimination, whistleblowing, trade union relations, restrictive covenants and day-to-day HR issues. He has extensive experience advising clients in the financial services sector on the Senior Managers and Certification Regime.
Robert also advises educational institutions and individuals on crisis management, safeguarding, complaints, exclusions, academic freedom and discrimination.
Robert is Vice Chair of the Industrial Law Society and member of the Employment Lawyers Association. He is a governor of the Latymer Foundation and a former teacher.
Key Experience
Employment
- Advised multiple clients on large scale redundancy exercise due to the impact of COVID-19, including well known luxury retailer and a luxury hotel chain.
- Represented a leisure and tourism group at the Central Arbitration Committee opposing a trade union application for statutory recognition.
- Worked as legal secondee to a leading Russell Group university, taking responsibility for managing the university's employment tribunal caseload.
- Successfully advised a senior executive on a disability discrimination claim against a US investment bank.
- Advised a long-established private bank on the implementation of the FCA's Senior Managers and Certification Regime.
Education
- Acted for the Union of Jewish Students and the current and former Presidents of the University of Bristol Jewish Society in relation to accusations of anti-Semitism against Professor David Miller.
- Successfully advised the Hamud family in raising a complaint of religious discrimination with Uxbridge High School's governing body about the uniform rules and the way in which they were applied to their daughter.
- Assisted the Social Mobility Foundation with advocating for students from socially deprived backgrounds and provided guidance and template letters on the 2021 Centre Assessed Grades process.
- Led a team of lawyers advising a school on handling multiple allegations of management and safeguarding failures.
- Advised numerous families whose children are affected by child-on-child abuse in schools, particularly in the aftermath of Everyone's Invited.
- Represented a leading independent school defending a claim for disability discrimination at the First Tier and Upper Tribunals.
- Advised numerous schools, and delivered training for sector bodies, on the handling of complex parental complaints.
Equity & Diversity
- Advised the Criminal Bar Association on challenging court extended operating hours primarily on the basis that the measures would be indirectly discriminatory against female barristers.
Career History
Managing Associate, Mishcon de Reya LLP
Trustee, Latymer Foundation
Associate, Farrer & Co LLP (Qualified 2013)
History Teacher, Kingsbury School & Sports College
The Queen's College, University of Oxford, Modern History & Politics