Hickman & Rose

Hickman & Rose was established with a founding commitment to uphold the Rule of Law and to hold the state to account in the exercise of its power. We are proud of our long history of pro bono work acting for those unable to secure private funding or where the inadequacies of the legal aid scheme mean individuals have fallen outside its scope.

Our lawyers have worked on some of the most important miscarriage of justice cases in recent years. Our Head of Serious & General Crime, Jenny Wiltshire, acted for appellants including Stephen Simmons, the so called ‘Oval Four’ and ’Stockwell Six’, whose convictions have been overturned by the Court of Appeal. Helen Stone has acted as an intervener before the Supreme Court in an important case with far-reaching consequences for the verdict of unlawful killing at inquest.

Ben Rose founded the charity Grit (formerly called Youth at Risk) in 1989 which is dedicated to helping young people who face desperately difficult challenges to transform their lives. Ben Rose and Daniel Machover jointly founded Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights and Daniel Machover has undertaken significant amounts of pro bono work for Palestinian clients.

Daniel Machover is a Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees of INQUEST, a charity which supports people whose relatives have died at the hands of the state. He is also a trustee of Legal Action Worldwide.

The firm takes an active role in professional associations dealing with access to justice. Jane Hickman was one of the founders of the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association and she served as its secretary for 10 years. Peter Csemiczky is on the committee of the London Criminal Court Solicitors Association (LCCSA) and served as its Secretary between 2018 and 2020, while Jenny Wiltshire served as its Vice President between 2015 and 2017.

Aileen Colhoun and Jenny Wiltshire are two of the founding members of Women in Criminal Law which aims to support the careers of women working in all areas of the criminal justice system by breaking down barriers to success. Aileen Colhoun has been the Secretary of Women in Criminal Law from May 2018 to date. Emily Sheils is a current committee member of the Female Fraud Forum whose purpose is to promote and encourage the advancement of women of all levels of expertise, through shared ideas, knowledge, and experiences.

Hickman & Rose offers mentoring and work experience to young people who do not have ready-made networks to help them access careers in the legal world. Many of the young people whom we help have already overcome significant hurdles to reach this stage of their careers.

Since 2016 the firm has also worked closely with Leaders Unlocked, an organisation which works with young adults from under-represented groups to help shape decision-making on issues that affect their lives.

Hickman & Rose is a signatory to the Law Society’s Diversity and Inclusion charter and is committed to implementing and promoting the standards set out in the charter. We promote an open forum for staff to raise EDI issues and observations and educate ourselves from the experiences of others. We hold regular training and are always looking to improve our recruitment processes to reach talented individuals from a cross section of society.

Hickman & Rose became an Accredited UK living wage employer in 2016. Our lowest rates of pay were considerably higher than the Living Wage.

The firm is a committed member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance which provides support and advice to law firms in the UK to reduce their carbon emissions.