Payne Hicks Beach LLP‘s specialist education practice represents students and their parents in a wide range of matters, regarding admissions arrangements and appeals, exclusions and appeals as well as advice relating to byelaws, regulations and examinations. ’Excellent’ litigator Ane Vernon spearheads the team and has extensive experience in education-related disputes, often involving sensitive issues such as safeguarding issues and allegations of sexual and other misconduct, as well as in judicial review proceedings. Dominic Crossley assists his clients in disciplinary matters, while the head of the defence and investigations team Mark Jones covers education disputes overlapping with criminal allegations.
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- ‘Ane Vernon is simply excellent. A very fine legal mind, she is pragmatic, thinks of all possible angles, and is not afraid to give her assessment of the situation even if she knows that’s not what the client was hoping to hear (which is incredibly valuable). As an Education Law specialist, whilst her clients are typically a child's parents, she remains focused on achieving the best outcome for the child. Her experience as a litigator is a particularly helpful additional skillset should the need for a more combative approach be required (even if matters do not end up in litigation). And she’s very reactive.’
‘Their experience in the private school sector was a big attraction for us and their success rate in winning parent vs school cases.’
‘Ane Vernon was very supportive and knowledgeable regarding the inner workings and mind set of private schools and their headmasters. She was also very supportive and mindful of our child's wants and needs during the whole process meaning that their wishes were upheld and respected.’
‘Ane Vernon was on the other side in a dispute with a school. She was acting for the parents and I was acting for the school. She was excellent - technically very sound and very reasonable, pragmatic and constructive to deal with. We were able to reach a resolution in difficult circumstances.’
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Ane Vernon