Criminal Defence, Protest Rights, Housing, Public Law

Criminal defence

Rosalind is regularly instructed in Crown Court and Magistrates Court matters, representing Defendants at all stages through to appeal, including Court of Appeal proceedings. She has dealt with offences ranging from theft and criminal damage to serious assaults, supplying Class A drugs, threats to kill and arson with intent to endanger life. She has successfully worked with defendants with vulnerabilities and complex needs by giving their cases due time, consideration and respect. This has included defendants who are young-adult care leavers, homeless, or victims of domestic violence. She is routinely instructed in cases where defendants require assessment on fitness to plead due to mental illness or impairment, and frequently advises on instructing and handling expert psychiatric evidence.

Protest Rights

Rosalind has a successful and expanding Protest Rights practice in the Crown and Magistrates Courts. She has secured numerous acquittals in complex cases involving aggravated trespass, obstructing a highway and criminal damage.

Rosalind has defended protesters aligned with organisations such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action. She often appears alongside GCN’s Aarif Abraham and Mira Hammad. Rosalind completed pupillage under the supervision of Anna Morris KC, co-author of the Protest Handbook.

Housing

In her housing practice, Rosalind has grown an expertise across the full spectrum of landlord and tenant matters. She advises and represents tenants in possession proceedings, injunction hearings, committals for sentence and matters involving anti-social behaviour. She has experience in disrepair claims, as standalone matters and as counterclaims in possession proceedings. She recently secured damages in excess of £10,000 for a tenant in a standalone disrepair claim at trial.

Public law

Rosalind also has a longstanding interest in welfare benefits, discrimination and public law, having worked at the Greater Manchester Law Centre and on human rights claims at Leigh Day solicitors before joining Garden Court North. She worked on community outreach, strategic litigation and case preparation. At Leigh Day solicitors Rosalind’s caseload included human rights actions, welfare benefits cases and class action discrimination claims against large employers.

Rosalind has continued this work within Chambers’ prestigious public law team. Rosalind was junior counsel to Garden Court North’s Tom Royston in the Upper Tribunal and latterly Court of Appeal case of R (Bui) v SSWP [2022] UKUT 189 (AAC). This was a challenge to the lawfulness of the SSWP’s policy that she will not process payments of benefit to Universal Credit claimants without a national insurance number.

Young Legal Aid Lawyers Haldane Society Legal Sector Workers United

Rosalind Burgin accepts nationwide instructions in criminal defence, protest rights and housing law. She is committed to acting for the individual against the state or private bodies. Her day-to-day practice involves defending protestors in the criminal courts and representing tenants in possession proceedings and claims involving anti-social behaviour injunctions. She has a growing practice in public law, namely judicial review proceedings in social security.

University of Birmingham BA(Hons) Modern Languages, First Class with Distinction in Spoken Italian; University of Law, Graduate Diploma in Law, Commendation; BPP University, Legal Practice (Barrister) and Master of Laws, Distinction.