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| Louise Whitfield Background Louise Whitfield is an associate solicitor who qualified in 1997. Louise was recruited by Pierce Glynn in 2009. Previously she worked at the Public Law Project (PLP), the leading public law NGO, where she was Head of Casework. Louise trained and qualified at Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors where she remained for a further six years before joining PLP in 2003. Public law, discrimination and human rights Louise is a public law specialist, with 12 years’ post-qualifying experience of conducting high-profile judicial review claims across a wide range of subject areas including discrimination and equality duties, public sector funding and procurement, medical services and community care, claims based on breaches of the Human Rights Act, and claims relating to inquests and prisoners’ rights. During her time at the Public Law Project (PLP), Louise developed a particular specialism in representing voluntary sector organizations and their service-users in challenging funding cuts or other unfair public body decisions. For example, she brought a successful claim against Leicester City Council resulting in the overhaul of their funding of the voluntary sector and she acted in proceedings which established that health authorities could fund advice agencies targeting those with mental health problems. Louise’s recent casework has focused on public law discrimination challenges arising from the public sector equality duties. She represented the claimants in leading cases on s71 of the Race Relations Act (the race equality duty) and s49A of the Disability Discrimination Act (the disability equality duty). She has advised on a number of gender equality duty cases and regularly represents women’s organizations on a wide range of public law issues. Louise also has particular expertise in advising on Local Strategic Partnerships and Local Area Agreements, as well as the duty to involve, a crucial – but often neglected – part of lawful local government decision-making. Louise was heavily involved in PLP’s work to extend the availability of protective costs orders (PCOs) – a crucial development in enabling NGOs to challenge unlawful government decisions; she led on the intervention by PLP in the case of The Corner House, the leading decision on PCOs. Louise was also PLP’s nominated representative on the Legal Services Commission’s Public Interest Advisory Panel, assessing whether particular cases should be designated as having significant wider public interest. Louise has extensive experience of delivering public law training to lawyers and non-lawyers, having designed, developed and delivered a wide range of courses ranging from conference workshops on public law basics and the equality duties, to one-day events on judicial review pre-action tactics and strategy for claimants’ representatives. Social welfare law As Louise is a public law specialist, she does not conduct mainstream housing or social security cases, save where they raise substantial public law issues. However Louise has substantial experience of, and continues to conduct, judicial review claims in the community care field. Reported cases Significant cases in which Louise has represented the claimants/appellants or interveners: R (Kaur & Shah) v London Borough of Ealing (High Court) – domestic violence funding cuts; no race impact assessment R (Chavda & Others) v London Borough of Harrow (High Court) - restriction of adult care service to people with critical needs Kehoe v UK (European Court of Human Rights) – CSA delays and Articles 6 and 13 of the Human Rights Convention R (Cornerhouse Research) v Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, PLP intervening (Court of Appeal) - principles and practice of making protective costs orders in public law cases R (Keating & Others) v Cardiff Local Health Board (Court of Appeal) – health authority powers to fund advice for mental health service users R (Capenhurst & Others) v Leicester City Council (High Court) - decision to cease funding six voluntary organisations without adequate consultation quashed R (Williams) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (Court of Appeal) - disclosure of reports and right to oral hearing for discretionary life prisoner |