Management Committee

The ELA Management Committee has oversight of all ELA's work. It decides on key matters in relation to the Association's strategy and policy. For example, the Committee decides on the direction of its membership service development, oversees the Association's finances and constitution, and has overall responsibility for ELA's administrative function.

The Management Committee gives guidance to each of ELA's sub-committees, all of whom report back to the Committee. All new initiatives undertaken by the sub-committees are authorised by the Committee.

The Management Committee is elected annually from the membership. Elections take place each spring.

Management Committee 2010-2012

Chair
Joanne Owers
Joanne is a partner at Fox Williams LLP, having trained at Lovells and worked at both Baker & McKenzie and Charles Russell LLP (where she was also a partner). She has been an employment specialist since she qualified in 1995 and enjoys a diverse practice, acting for a wide variety of clients from multi-national companies to public sector organisations, as well as senior executives. She has a particular interest in discrimination law and writes and lectures widely.

Joanne’s active involvement in ELA dates back to 2001 when she first joined the Training Committee. During her eight years on that Committee, she devised and chaired numerous London evening sessions, break-out sessions at Annual Conferences and many ELA courses.Joanne joined the ELA Management Committee as a London and South-East Regional Representative in 2007. Having been elected Deputy Chair in 2008/2009, she was invited to take on the role of Acting Chair of the Training Committee in January 2009 and led the organisation of the Annual Conference in Wales. She was re-elected as Deputy Chair in 2009/2010.

Joanne's intention is to build upon and continue the work of previous Chairs to broaden the appeal and reach of the ELA. She has welcomed the recent appointment of an In House representative onto the Management Committee. She is committed to ensuring that ELA continues to provide the highest standard of training and education for all its members across all sectors and areas of the country and further that the important work of ELA to improve legislation and the practice of employment law remains a clear priority. She welcomed the opportunity to chair the Working Party and devise the Employment Tribunal Survey 2010 which has just been launched and which she is committed to following through once the views of the membership are known.

Deputy Chair
Richard Fox
Richard is Head of Kingsley Napley’s Employment Department, having been with the firm since he qualified in 1986. He acts for corporates, organisations and high profile individuals in relation to the full range of employment issues, focusing in particular on confidentiality and restrictive covenants, executive pay, bonuses, severance arrangements, unfair dismissal, discrimination, whistle blowing, business reorganisation and redundancy.

He was formerly President of the London Solicitors Litigation Association (2000-2002) and have been Chair of ELA’s Legislative and Policy Sub-Committee for the last two years.He has lectured and written on a wide variety of employment topics and have also been appointed on a number of occasions by the High Court to supervise the execution of search orders. He has been involved with ELA for approximately 12 years, for the last 10 on Legislative & Policy Sub-Committee, since 2008 as its Chair. He organised ELA’s Tribunal Monitoring Survey in 2006, which played a significant part in bringing about the demise of the Statutory Dismissal Procedures.

He strongly believes that ELA, as the collective voice of all employment lawyers, can together influence the employment agenda.

Secretary
Richard Linskell
Richard's practice encompasses the full range of contentious and non-contentious employment work, acting for employers and employees. Regularly advising both sides in employment disputes (not at the same time!) puts him in an ideal position to represent the perspective of both respondent and claimant lawyers.

He has acted in a number of reported cases and have extensive advocacy experience in Tribunals and the EAT. He regularly contribute articles to ELA Briefing and other journals. He is currently Secretary of ELA and has been on the Management Committee and Editorial Board of ELA Briefing for a number of years.

He hopes to continue to contribute to ELA over the coming year and to making it both important and relevant to all parts of the membership, including increasing interest and participation in ELA in the regions and amongst those who still see ELA as a respondent-focused organisation.

Although he has committed much time to ELA over the years, he is still extremely enthusiastic and committed to an excellent organisation. He believes that ELA has continuously improved over the years and it must continue to innovate by providing better services and new ways of delivering existing services.

Treasurer
Jane Amphlett
Jane is a Partner in the Employment team of Finers Stephens Innocent LLP. She has specialised in employment/discrimination law for the past 16 years and, during my career, have worked for regional, West End and City firms.

She has held the post of Treasurer of the ELA for almost two years. During her time as Treasurer ELA has faced challenging times, in particular with a reduction in training income and changes to subscription rates, but we have managed to balance prudence and appropriate spending to the benefit of the ELA Membership, such that the Association’s finances are in good order. She has also attended the vast majority of ELA Management Committee meetings during her tenure and played an active role in those meetings and various Management Committee initiatives.

She would like to continue to help to manage the Association’s finances appropriately and to continue her involvement as an active member of the Management Committee.

Editor, ELA Briefing
Alex Lock
Alex has been working as an employment lawyer since 1996, having undertaken a number of cases at the Free Representation Unit whilst studying at Bar School. He did not practice as a barrister, but worked for an organisation providing employment law services to industry.

In 1999 he joined Beachcroft Wansbroughs (now Beachcroft LLP) in Bristol and became a partner in 2002. He has remained at Beachcroft and in Bristol and head a team of 15 employment lawyers, part of a national group of over 80 lawyers and 14 partners.

He joined the editorial board about 7 years ago and became deputy editor under Daniel Barnett. He has been editor for the past 4 years and believe that I have made a contribution to the continued success of ELA Briefing. He and the editorial board have maintained the reputation of ELA Briefing as being the leading employment law journal in the UK, with a readership of over 5,000 each month.

Chair, Legislative & Policy Committee
Bronwyn McKenna
Bronwyn is a solicitor admitted in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland. She works in-house at UNISON, doing a mixture of claimant and respondent work. Prior to moving in-house, she was an Assistant Solicitor at Slaughter and May.

She has extensive experience of collective and individual employment litigation in the UK and European Courts. She has particular expertise in the areas of discrimination, equal pay and information and consultation. She writes widely on employment law issues and is a frequent conference speaker including recent ELA, ILS and ABA events. In 2002 she was appointed to the CAC.

Bronwyn has been an active L&P member, contributing to subcommittees including Transforming Tribunals, the ACAS Code and the ET survey. More recently, she chaired subcommittees such as NMW and blacklisting. She has represented L&P at meetings with BIS and the EHRC.

Over the past year, she has held the brief of updating the Committee on developments on the Equality Bill and liaising with the subcommittees considering the draft EHRC Codes and guidance.

Her aim is to sustain the thoughtful, rigorous and inclusive nature of L&P's work so that practitioners' knowledge and experience is properly considered by decision makers.

Chair, Training Committee
Gareth Brahams
Gareth first attended ELA National Conference as a trainee in 1994 and it inspired him to become an employment lawyer. He attended on every occasion since then. He qualified in 1995, joining Lewis Silkin in 2000. He has been a partner in the Employment Department of Lewis Silkin since 2002.

His practice covers acting for both employers and employees on both contentious and non-contentious matters. He is a regular conference speaker and commentator on employment law in the national and legal press.

He has been a member of the ELA’s Training Committee for over seven years; chair for the last year; member of two ELA working parties; chaired several London evening sessions; spoken at and chaired breakout sessions at the annual conference and speaks annually at introductory courses. Innovations of the Committee in the past year have included a course on High Court Litigation which attracted over 200 delegates and producing DVDs of London training sessions for distribution to the regions. He will work to keep training interesting, innovative, great value, cutting edge and practical; inspiring all members to continue to develop their knowledge of employment law and their skills.

Chair, Pro Bono Committee
Paul Daniels
Paul is a Partner in the Employment Department of RJW London specialising in advising only Claimants. He joined Russell Jones  Walker in 1995 and was made a Partner in April 2001.

He has 15 years experience advising Claimants and Senior Executives in the fields of whistleblowing, discrimination, wrongful dismissal, redundancy and unfair dismissal. In 2005 he was appointed as a part-time Employment Judge in London South Employment Tribunal. Earlier on in my career, he trained at international law firm, Linklaters, qualifying into the employment department in 1993. He therefore also has experience from the Employers’ side of the fence.

He has been an active member of the ELA for ten years and a committee member for the last two years, with a particular passion for expanding ELA pro bono initiatives. He has been chair of the Pro Bono Committee of ELA for about 9 months. It has been very busy and Paul feels there have been some exciting new developments, including the introduction of the ELA 100 days project and the widening of the number of agencies who can refer pro bono work to ELA, including charities, the colleges of law, BPP and law centres. He has also worked to strengthen our relationship with the Bar Pro Bono Unit and FRU.

Chair, International Committee
Christopher Walter

Christopher leads the development of the international employment practice at Covington & Burling, and was partner and chair of Paul Hastings’ London employment team. His practice has a significant international element, involving issues relating to cross-border data privacy, expat employee assignments, international enforcement of restrictive covenants, and European works councils. Before joining Paul Hastings, he was Special Counsel at Covington & Burling, and an associate at the London office of Baker & McKenzie. His legal career began at the Bar (He was called at Lincoln’s Inn in 1991).

He has been a member of ELA since 1994. He has contributed many articles to ELA Briefing over the years. He has also presented on international employment matters to ELA members – chairing panels on US/EU Class Action Litigation at the joint ELA/ABA event in Gray’s Inn last year, and on Working With US Clients in 2008. He has been a member of the International Committee for just over two and a half years, and greatly welcomes the opportunity to collaborate more closely with the excellent membership of that Committee.

Representative of the Bar
Sean Jones
Sean is a barrister specialising exclusively in Employment Law and a member of 11KBW Chambers. He is General Editor of Tolley’s Employment Handbook. He has been involved with ELA since the 1990s and has served as a member of the Management Committee once before.

He is an elected member of the Employment Law Bar Association Management Committee and formerly acted as ELAAS co-ordinator. He would like to be part of the process enabling the professional bodies need to act together as advocates for the Employment Justice system.

As a member of the ELBA committee he wants to do more to encourage the involvement of the Bar in ELA and to continue to develop ways of having the two associations work together effectively. As an active member of the IBA, I would also like to be involved in forging closer ties with our international colleagues.

Regional Representatives
London & South East
Dijen Basu

Dijen is a barrister at Devereux Chambers with 15 years’experience in employment and business disputes.He also advises Britain’s largest police forces on matters of law unique to the police.

He sits part-time as a Crown Court Recorder and am a member of the Attorney General’s Panel of Special Advocates. Before coming to the Bar, he qualified and practised as a doctor and tries to justify hid 5 years of medical training by regularly acting in cases which feature clinical malpractice. He believes that ELA is one credible voice which speaks up for the positive side of employment law – promoting equal pay, stamping out harassment and discrimination in the workplace and removing disadvantage. He hopes to play a full part in ELA's work to encourage practical improvements to the system in which ELA members work every day.

Anna Henderson

Anna qualified at CMS Cameron McKenna in 1994 and has been a professional support lawyer at Herbert Smith since 2000. In 2001, she co-founded PEN, the UK network for employment PSLs, in which she still has a key leadership role (as part of which she helped design the original ELA 'boot camp' for newly qualifieds). She has been a member of ELA since 1996 and an active member of the ELA Briefing Editorial Committee since 2001. She has also contributed to three ELA legislative working parties.

As the current London & South East representative, Anna attended almost all Management Committee and Training Committee meetings. She and Jane Mulcahy took the initiative in canvassing support among South East members for more non-London-based training sessions (which are now running in Cambridge). She also spoke at and helped design the ELA Refresher course in November 2009 and has been involved in designing three other training courses.
If re-elected, her priorities will include broadening ELA's membership, improving communication with members, and providing support for those at the early stage of their employment law career.

Midlands
Tariq Sadiq
Tariq is a barrister who has specialised in employment law for over fifteen years. He is Treasury Counsel and in 2009 was appointed to the Welsh Assmbly Panel of Counsel for employment work. He is consistently recommended as a leading employment Barrister by Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500.

Since his appointment, he has, arranged regular training sessions and social events each year in Birmingham and Nottingham to the extent that the Midlands now has the busiest lecture programme in the country outside London. In the year 2009-2010, he arranged a total of 15 training sessions and more are in the pipeline. He has set up Shadowing Schemes for members to shadow Employment Judges in Birmingham and Nottingham tribunals and been involved in the Pro-Bono Employment Advice and Assistance Scheme in Birmingham. He has chaired the regions response to the Gibbons Review regarding statutory procedures and was a member of a working party regarding the Employment Tribunal Practice Survey 2010. He has been an active member of the ELA Training Committee and attended local ET User Groups on behalf of ELA members.

Louise Bloomfield
North East
Louise is based in the Employment and Pensions Group at Beachcroft LLP in sLeeds, specialising in strategic employment advice for private sector organisations, as well as handling a large employment tribunal case load. he trained at Eversheds LLP and then spent over 4 years at Pinsent Masons LLP in the employment team before joining Beachcroft LLP in November 2008. During her career, she has also spent a significant amount of time on secondment with the in-house legal team at one of Britain’s largest retailers.

In her first year as the North East Representative her main goal was to listen and respond to the needs of the members. She has actively encouraged networking by hosting drinks, a dinner with ELBA and has plans for a BBQ/pub quiz later in the year. She has organised numerous training sessions for members in different locations, with further sessions arranged in response to requests from members. She has also forged links with the regional tribunal user group to encourage members to participate and engage with the Regional Chair to improve feedback and interaction with the local employment tribunals.

No nominations were received
North West

No nominations were received
Northern Ireland

Paul Brown
Scotland
Paul is a Partner in the Employment Unit at Biggart Baillie LLP. He is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde and has specialised in employment law for 16 years. Paul lives in the outskirts of Glasgow.

Having only served for one year, he feels that I am now getting to grips with the ELA and my responsibilities as Regional Representative. He has been a member of the Employment Lawyers Association for a considerable number of years and was one of the first Scottish lawyers to regularly attend the annual conference. In the early days, as a Scottish lawyer he felt that it was frustrating that the ELA was concentrated mostly in London. However, he feels that this has changed significantly over the last few years and he hopes to be able to continue development of the ELA in Scotland and indeed to represent Scotland’s Employment Lawyers interests within the organisation.

Damian Phillips
South Wales
Damian is a partner in the Employment Department of Darwin Gray LLP. He qualified in 1997 in a medium sized Cardiff firm, undertaking a variety of contentious and non-contentious employment law. In 2002, he joined a large Bristol practice, reinventing myself as a specialist employment lawyer. HE joined Hugh James in 2003, advancing to Senior Associate, before joining Darwin Gray in 2009. He practises all aspects of employment law, having a particular interest in industrial relations. He is an experienced advocate, regularly appearing in the Employment Tribunal. He also provides pro bono assistance at Cardiff Law Centre.

As the ELA rep for South Wales, he organised several social functions, including a quiz and summer BBQ and helped arrange a full programme of evening sessions over the past year. He has contributed to the organisation of the forthcoming ELA Conference and assisted an ELA working party to draft a Tribunal Users Survey. He is working on future training sessions and social events. He regularly attends Management and Training Committee meetings and deals with members’ queries.

David Major
South West
David qualified as a solicitor in 2002 and has specialised in employment law ever since. He works in Beachcroft LLP’s Employment and Pensions Group and undertakes litigation and advisory work for employers, although he also has experience of acting for individuals. He has been ELA representative for the South West since June 2009.

Since taking on the role of ELA South West representative in June 2009, he has organised a number of well attended evening training sessions as well as a successful quiz which was attended by over 80 members and raised in excess of £600 for local charities. He has also continued the ELA’s support of the Bristol and Avon Law Centre, co-ordinating the attendance of advisors from a panel of local law firms every other week. His aim for the year ahead is to focus on maintaining a busy schedule of events in Bristol whilst organising/co-ordinating more training and social events for those based outside Bristol.

Member at Large
Merrill April
Merrill is head of the Employment team at Memery Crystal LLP having trained at Beachcrofts and worked at Stephenson Harwood and Lawrence Graham LLP. She has specialised in employment since 1991 and is passionate about what she does. She has a diverse practice across a number of sectors and represents both employers and individuals. She enjoys finding solutions for clients and working with them to resolve complex issues. She has a litigation background and expertise in team moves and restrictive covenant injunctions.

She has served on the Training Committee for several years. I planned and chaired London evening sessions and a break out session at the Annual conference and at the NQ course in Birmingham. Prior to that, sh contributed to a working party of the L&P committee. As a small employment team, her organisation values and rely on the services ELA offers to its members. On the committee I would seek to be active and supportive and to take on any tasks that need additional resources to support the Committee and its members for the benefit of ELA as a whole.

Fiona Bolton

Fiona is a partner in the London employment team at Eversheds. She undertakes a full range of contentious and non-contentious employment work.

Fiona has lectured and written widely on a number of employment law topics.

Fiona regularly attends ELA events and has provided articles for the ELA Briefing. Fiona has spoken at ELA events, including lecturing at ELA’s introductory session for newly-qualified solicitors. Fiona is also speaking at the ELA Annual Conference 2010.

Fiona admires greatly ELA’s key role in providing excellent training and networking opportunities. Fiona would welcome the opportunity to continue the high quality of this, to expand training and comment to include areas outside of core employment law that employment lawyers should be aware of, and to encourage a wider range of members to participate in ELA at all levels.

Henry Clinton-Davis
Henry leads the employment and business immigration team at Arnold & Porter. He started life as a tenant in what is now Littleton Chambers, and has worked for both UK and US firms and for a short stint, was seconded as in-house counsel to a department store. Although his shopping skills remain poor and his dress a cause of embarrassment to my daughters, He feel he has a good understanding of all sides of the profession! He has a particular interest in international employment issues and in seeing smaller firms take a greater role in ELA.

He has been an active member of ELA for several years and a member at large on the Management Committee. Since my election last year, he facilitated a break-out session at the last Annual Conference, helped to organise a mock trial at a joint ELA/ABA event and together with Richard Fox and Lindsey Woods, negotiated ELA’s first ever sponsorship deal for this year’s conference. I am also Vice-Chair of the International Committee.

Jane Mulcahy
Jane was called to the Bar in 1995 and practises at Blackstone Chambers. The vast majority of my work involves employment law, both in the High Court and the Employment Tribunals. In recent months I have been involved in various discrimination claims involving allegations of sex, race, disability, religious, age and sexual orientation discrimination.

Blackstone Chambers is very committed to ELA. Members have worked on the Management Committee in the past, and others have taken time out to be involved in the ELA training programme. They wish to continue that commitment, not least because of ELA’s central role in the world of employment. Over the last year she has been privileged to attend ELA Management Committee meetings regularly and be involved in the survey currently circulating and in agreement to reinstate the funds for pro bono work.

Katharine Newton


Katharine is a barrister at Old Square Chambers practising exclusively in the field of employment law. She was called to the Bar in 1999, having studied International and Comparative Employment Law at Masters level, and having completed a ‘stage’ at the European Commission. She is listed as a leading employment junior in past and present editions of Chambers and Partners and act for both employers and employees in the employment tribunals, High Court, the appellate courts and mediations. She regularly lectures on a variety of topics within the employment law sphere.

Having a diverse employment law practice, she hopes to draw on her experience of appearing in all regions of Great Britain and acting for those on both sides of the Claimant and Respondent fence, in order to help maintain the balance of ELA. She sat on the ELA Management Committee last year and has considerable committee experience having sat for a number of years on various committees including the Bar Council Equality and Diversity Committee.

Co-opted Members
Tom Flanagan
ELA Law Society Council Seat

Ming Henderson Vu-Thi
In-House Representative
Ming is a French and English qualified solicitor, and first qualified as a lawyer in 1995.Ming Henderson is the Senior Employment Counsel for Oracle Corporation based in the UK and oversees employment issues across Europe Middle East and Africa. Oracle Corporation employs around 3,000 employees in the UK and 15,000 across EMEA.

Prior to joining Oracle in April 2009, Ming was Head of the Employment Law Practice for EMEA, Group HR at Royal Bank of Scotland, and before that, a Partner at Kramer Levin heading the Employment law Department in Paris where she practised for 12 years.

Ming has significant experience in cross-border transactions and is involved in employment law aspects of mergers and acquisitions, multijurisdictional harmonisation of terms and conditions, implementation of new global employment contracts and global restructurings, collective consultation and employment litigation across the EMEA region.

Ming is a regular speaker at international employment law seminars in the UK, continental Europe and the US.

Ming is also a member of the ELA International Committee.