Katherine became a tenant in December 2007 and is developing a practice across all of Chambers' specialisations including: Employment, Commercial, Civil Fraud and Sports/Regulatory/Public (see below for details of experience and recent cases).

Before qualifying at the Bar, Katherine studied law at New Hall College in Cambridge where she gained a double first and came 4th in her year. Katherine's grades from Cambridge enabled her to become the first Baker & McKenzie Cambridge-Harvard exchange scholar, a scholarship covering all of her costs of studying for the LL.M at Harvard Law School. During her year in Harvard Katherine took courses including Equality & Discrimination, Constitutional and Administrative law, Privatization Analysis and Comparative Antitrust and a paper on comparative contract law. Katherine was also part of the European Law Moot Court team which won the ELMC moot trophy at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. This competition involved both advocacy and pleading in English and French.

Katherine won a Bedingfield Scholarship from Gray's Inn for the BVC. During her BVC year Katherine returned to Cambridge as a supervisor at New Hall and Kings Colleges and also tutored at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London ("SOAS"). Katherine was awarded a commendation by Gray's Inn for her performance in their trial advocacy programme.

After completing her BVC, Katherine completed a stage with the Cabinet of Judge Schiemann at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Katherine's cases now often concern aspects of EC law, especially in the Employment, Commercial and Sports/Regulatory/Public fields.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Employment

Since starting at Littleton Katherine has a built an employment practice across core areas of employment law and regularly appears in Employment Tribunals.

Katherine was instructed, with Selwyn Bloch QC on behalf of OFSTED and the Adult Learning Inspectorate in the EAT in Beloff v Adult Learning Inspectorate UKAET/0238/07/RN, a case concerning the scope of "crown employment" in section 273 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

In August Katherine appeared on behalf of the Claimant in White v City of London: 29 August 2007 in which she successfully applied for a stay of the Claimant's case for age discrimination and unfair dismissal pending final determination of R (on the application of the Incorporated Trustees of the National Council on Ageing (Age Concern England)) v Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform [2007] EWHC B8 (Admin) 24 July 2007 ("the Heyday case"), Age Concern’s legal challenge to the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 which. Katherine's application succeeded a short time after the highly publicised refusal to grant one by the Employment Tribunal in Johns v Solent (before it was overturned by the EAT).

During pupillage Katherine experienced a range of cases involving discrimination, disciplinary and directors'/employees' duties:

pending case C-303/06 Coleman v Attridge Law, concerning the question of whether the Framework Directive protected those associated with people with a disability;
Bloxham v Freshfields Brukhaus Derringer, for the successful party, Freshfields; a case concerning age discrimination and transitional provisions introducing a new pension scheme for partners;
in Frontier Estates v James Howarth & Mark Glatman & Others, a civil fraud case involving breach of directors' duties see below.

Commercial

Katherine carries out a wide variety of commercial work including advocacy, pleading and advice. She regularly conducts her own cases and applications both inside and outside London.

During pupillage Katherine assisted her pupil supervisors with a wide variety of commercial work including:

preparation of Total Network v Commissioners v Customs & Excise for the House of Lords, concerning the tort of unlawful means conspiracy;
involved in Howell v Lees-Millais [2007] EWCA Civ 720, concerning recusal of Peter Smith J;
advising the Association of Football Agents in respect of the new Football Agents Regulations;

Civil Fraud

During pupillage Katherine experienced a wide range of civil fraud cases including:

assisting the Claimant apply for a search order in Frontier Estates v James Howarth & Mark Glatman and Others, a case concerning breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, knowing receipt and dishonest assistance;
defence to an inquiry to damages as a result of a wrongfully obtained a freezing order in Bitel LLC v Kyrgyz Mobil Tel Ltd and Others in the Isle of Man;
involved in advising on the setting aside of a judgment for fraud;

Also was involved in Tajik Aluminium v Ermatov and Others with a team from Blackstone Chambers.

Sports, regulatory and public law

Katherine has worked as part of the team representing Michael Coughlan in the McLaren/ Ferrari case.

During pupillage Katherine experienced cases involving disciplinary, regulatory, commercial and public law angles:

Assisting the Financial Services Authority in enforcement proceedings concerning the collapse of the Split Capital Investment Trusts Market;
The challenge by the Association of Football Agents to the FA's Revised Football Agents Regulations concerning a the rules of a private body on competition law and free movement principles (see above under Commercial law);
Assisted in acting for the boxer Reuben Groenevald in his challenge to his suspension by the British Boxing Board of Control and UK Athletics in relation to the suspension of the sprinter Christine Ohorougo;
Advice on passing off, copyright infringement and database rights in relation to the Cricket World Cup;
Assisted Eisai in Eisai Ltd. v The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) [2007] EWHC 1941 (Admin).

Publications:

Katherine M. Apps, Case C-176/03 Commission v Council: "Pillars Askew: Criminal Law EC-Style," (2006) 12 Columbia Journal of European Law 625.

Katherine M. Apps, Good Faith Performance in Employment Contracts: A "Comparative Conversation" between the US and England, (2006) 8 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor and Employment Law 883.

Languages:

Working knowledge of reading French. Conversational spoken French.

Associations:

Member of COMBAR, UKAEL, ELBA, Bar Pro-Bono Unit, the Free Representation Unit and BEG (Phoenicia Scholar 2007).

Other Interests:

When she has the time, Katherine enjoys Salsa dancing, art history, cookery, listening to classical music, travel and walking.