Farrer & Co

Employment, Safeguarding

Partner

Katie is a practising barrister with a decade of litigation experience in employment and safeguarding law built up while a tenant of Old Square Chambers. Katie believes in empowering her clients to take the right as well as legal course of action and she is valued her for her ability to cut through to the key issues and grasp the nettle with decisive and clear advice.

In safeguarding, Katie draws upon her first-hand involvement in safeguarding related litigation, including personal injury abuse claims in the county court, Teaching Regulation Authority prosecutions, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) and Special Educational Needs and discrimination cases brought before the First Tier Tribunal.

Her work as an independent investigator of safeguarding failures at major independent schools, international charities and sports organisations makes her ideally suited to guide clients through every step of safeguarding investigations, whether involving current or historic allegations and the associated engagement with the statutory agencies and regulators.

Katie is passionate about protecting children and adults at risk from harm and dedicates time to thought leadership in this area, working along-side other experts to produce the Farrer & Co guidance on implementing a low level concerns policy.

In Employment, Katie has appeared in the Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal and High Court for employers and employees in every type of employment tribunal case, in particular acting for Respondents in multi-day discrimination and whistleblowing cases in the education and healthcare sector. Her experience of appearing as the advocate in these cases allows her to give clients practical first-hand advice on resolving claims commercially, strategically and sensitively. Katie has excellent experience and success in representing clients at judicial mediation and securing advantageous settlement terms.

Katie is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association, the Employment Law Bar Association, the Industrial Law Society and the Education Law Association. She regularly attends national and international conferences and events and regularly speaks on employment law and safeguarding.