Chambers Blog

Always keen to support those interested in a career at the Bar, New Walk Chambers were amongst the speakers at the "A career in law" careers talk held at Loughborough University on the 9th November 2011.

Christopher Knowles attended the event and gave a talk on a  career at the Bar and the life of a Pupil Barrister. He was one of three speakers at the event - the other two being representatives from the Government Legal Service and the College of Law.

His talk covered the numerous routes to a career as a Barrister, and what chambers would be looking for in prospective pupils and how to apply for pupillage.During the course of the talk, Christopher touched upon the Inns of Court, the Bar Professional Training Course and CV and application form tips.

Following the talk, Christopher remained behind to answer questions from students and participated in an exercise with the College of Law, which covered aspects of the core modules which would be studied on the graduate diploma in law course, namely contract, criminal, tort, land, constitutional, equity and trusts, and european law.

New Walk Chambers congratulates Sally Brett on becoming the first recipient of the New Walk Chambers Prize. The prize reflects Chambers' commitment to employment law and personal development through lifelong learning. It will be awarded annually to the best graduate in the University of Leicester LL.M. in Employment Law by Distance Learning.

Sally, who achieved a Distinction, is seen here with the Course Director, Pascale Lorber, and David Monk.

 The government has announced that the minimum pay for apprentices will rise to £95 per week. The increase will mainly benefit low-paid sectors such as care and hairdressing, described by the government as employing more women, rather than construction where apprentice wages are on average already higher than this.

This minimum is not under the auspices of the national minimum wage legislation, from which apprentices under the age of 19 or in their first year are exempt, but instead is a contractual rate between employers and the Learning & Skills Council. The government has however amended the Low Pay Commission's terms of reference to consider the future of the exemption, bearing in mind that by the time the school leaving age is raised to 18 in 2013 it is intended there will be around 500,000 apprentices in the UK.

Written by Joseph Neville, Barrister at New Walk Chambers, specialising in Employment law.

Compromise agreements between employer and employee can be a means under which employer and employee can part company amicably. For example in a redundancy, the employee can achieve an   enhanced lump sum on leaving the employment and the employer by virtue of the agreement can be assured that he will not face a claim in the employment tribunal.

However to be valid the compromise agreement must be handled and certified by a qualified person. Barristers hold such qualification and under Direct Public Access are able to advise the employee concerned. Compromise agreements are thus important pieces of work which the employment team in Chambers carry out.

A member of the team Robert Rees has recently advised and certified a number of compromise agreements for employees under the Direct Public Access. In one case he was contacted on a Friday, saw the client on the Saturday, and the certified compromise agreement was immediately in the post.

The Direct Access team as well as having the necessary skill to advise on compromise agreements are able to advise on them with minimal delay.

Visit a new employment Direct Public Access website of Robert Rees:

employmentlaw.uk.com

 

By Robert Rees, part of Chambers employment law team. Certified to carry out work.

The House of Lords has published an important decision on disability discrimination law, Lewisham v Malcolm [2008] UKHL 43, that turns much previous authority on its head. The particular case concerned housing: Malcolm was a secure tenant of the local authority, but he left his flat and subletted it. This had the legal effect of cancelling his security of tenure and converting his tenancy to a contractual one. The local authority served notice and brought a possession claim. Under normal circumstances, since the subletting was a breach of the tenancy, the local authority would be successful.

Malcolm's defence was that he had breached his tenancy agreement as a result of his schizophrenia, and that he was disabled within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Section 22(3)(c) of the 1995 Act provides that evicting a person from housing is unlawful if in doing so the landlord discriminates. Section 24 the provides that discrimination will exist if "(a) for a reason which relates to the disabled person's disability, [the landlord] treats him less favourably than he treats or would treat others to whom that reason does not or would not apply; and (b) [the landlord] cannot show that the treatment is justified."

This statutory wording has been the subject of much dispute over the years - if Malcolm's case is right then the council cannot evict him for unlawfully subletting his flat. Nor could they (or any other landlord) evict a tenant for falling into arrears if this was due to a disability.

The House of Lords addressed the following issues:

• Does the reason for the eviction "relate" to the tenant's disability?

To determine this question the Lords followed the usual practice of looking for the non-disabled comparator. In this case, the correct comparator was a person without a disability who had nonetheless sublet the flat and moved out. Since the local authority would have treated this person in exactly the same way, it could not be said to be treating Malcolm "less favourably" such as to give rise to a claim of disability discrimination.

• Is it relevant whether the landlord knew of the tenant's disability?

The Lords' view was robust- the local authority must have knowledge (or imputed knowledge) of the disability before it can be said to have discriminated. This ruling resolves a considerable a number of conflicting authorities.

This is an important judgment, as it relates not only to housing, but to employment law, education, transport and goods and services.

Written by Joseph Neville, Barrister at New Walk Chambers specialising in Employment Law.