james bickford smith

James practises in employment and commercial law. He joined Littleton after obtaining a Double First and Doctorate from Oxford University, where he worked as a College Lecturer in History. When converting to law he gained “Outstanding” marks on the Bar Vocational Course. He scored particularly highly in the cross-examination assessment of the BVC and won the Herbert Smith award for outstanding individual speaker in the Final of the Apex Competition.

James has unusually extensive experience of Employment Tribunal advocacy for a barrister of his call. He is regularly briefed in multi-day hearings and PHRs before Tribunals across the country. He has also appeared successfully in the EAT. Much of his practice consists of repeat business, with instructing solicitors ranging from City firms to sole practitioners. He is familiar with highly charged litigation and in 2010-11 secured over ten costs orders in Tribunal. He is equally at home dealing with difficult points of law.

His commercial practice is focused on giving straightforward advice based on meticulous research to a variety of commercial parties, ranging from private investors to multinational companies. Cases on which James assisted during pupillage included a number of complex insurance and reinsurance disputes as well as the Bank Charges Litigation (Court of Appeal and House of Lords/Supreme Court). Over the summer of 2011 James undertook a secondment with a highly-regarded Banking and Finance Litigation team alongside his existing bookings. During his secondment he settled pleadings for retail banks, finance companies, and a payment-systems operator in breach of mandate, guarantee, payment system, CCA, and debt claims. He is now appearing with increasing regularity in a range of County Court claims.

Please click on the links below or contact the clerks for fuller details of recent employment and commercial experience.

commercial

James has broad experience of commercial work gained first at a magic circle commercial set and then at Littleton. He has drafted advices, notes, or pleadings in respect of claims which have proceeded to judgment in the High Court and/or Court of Appeal in each of the following fields: insurance; reinsurance; aviation; civil fraud; retail banking; investment banking; professional negligence; general commercial. He has also worked on a substantial number of conflicts of law problems both in the commercial and commercial employment fields.

Much of James’ commercial work is undertaken as part of a team, and he has often been tasked with researching discrete but difficult points of law at short notice as well as drafting pleadings and liaising with expert witnesses or foreign lawyers.

Current or recent commercial matters undertaken alone include freight claims, insurance coverage disputes, bonus and commission disputes, a construction matter, and international arbitration work.

In all his work James aims to provide clients with prompt, straightforward and commercially realistic advice based on meticulous research.

Fuller details of James’ commercial experience are given in the Word version of this CV.

employment

James has a broad employment practice focused on trial work, with experience of bringing or responding to claims of: unfair dismissal, race, sex, age and disability discrimination, unlawful deductions, breach of contract, lay-off redundancy, part-time worker discrimination, unjustifiable discipline (TULR(C)A), breaches of the WTR, and automatically unfair dismissal following protected disclosure or TUPE transfer.

Respondent clients have included small businesses, limited, public limited and multinational companies, public sector bodies, community organisations, a Trades Union, and charities. James enjoys learning about his client’s businesses or activities and considers it essential to do so. He is now increasingly instructed at an early stage to handle highly-charged or problematic cases for corporate and other clients he has represented in earlier Tribunal proceedings.

Claimant clients have come from all walks of life, and James has secured a number of high value settlements or awards. He is also careful to establish early what non-financial outcome if any a client seeks and then to work towards achieving this; settlement agreements have included provisions a) waiving restrictive covenants b) concerning detailed agreed references and c) concerning re-engagement on negotiated terms.

James undertakes advisory work both in the run-up to hearing and on a stand-alone basis. The latter often involves smaller commercial employment disputes (TUPE transfers, bonus schemes, restrictive covenants).

TUPE

Cases as sole counsel include:

Dumol, Naitta & ors v Aircraft Services International Group (1), Gate Aviation Ltd (2), Performa Elan Singapore Pte Ltd (3): 4-day PHR concerning closure of Heathrow Terminal 2. James acted for C2, successfully arguing transfer from business class lounge in T2 to cross-branded lounge in T4. Over twenty different airlines involved. Issues of fragmentation, whether “client” requires legal personality, correct legal test for when services fundamentally different.
Barnes & or v Milsteda Systems: acted for C1 in claim brought against transferee only. C employed by payroll company. R argued that Tribunal not entitled to pierce corporate veil. Transfer upheld following legal submissions at PHR. Case settled on Day 3 of Full Merits Hearing in course of cross-examination of R’s witnesses on ETO/redundancy pool issues.
X & ors v B Ltd & J Ltd: acted for C9. Cs employed as delivery drivers by freight forwarding company which lost nationwide delivery contract. Main issue: whether organised grouping of employees assigned to contract. Case settled on Day 2 of PHR.
F v H Council and X Police Force: scope of administrative transfer exception to TUPE, construction and effect of policing agreement between Police Force and Council.
R v S Ltd (High Court): transfer of enhanced redundancy rights under TUPE 1981.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

BA (Balliol College, Oxford): Double First
Frazer Scholar of Balliol College and James Gay Prize for History
University of Oxford Carlyle Scholar in the History of Post-Classical Political Thought (1999-2003)
Arts and Humanities Research Board Competitions A & B Winner (1999-2004)
Doctorant Etranger at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (LSH)
D. Phil (Oxon) (also completed Master of Studies)
College Lecturer in History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Lincoln’s Inn: Lord Haldane CPE Scholarship; Lord Mansfield major BVC Award; Buchanan Prize for performance in Bar Finals; Sir Robert Megarry pupillage award

James’s main hobby is history. His examiners recommended his doctorate on the history of Normandy in the eleventh century for publication by Oxford University Press and he continues to prepare this for publication when time allows. In July 2011 he presented a paper to the 34^th Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies in York. He has also delivered papers and taught in French.

Other hobbies include travel, art, and Italian cooking.

Call: 2008
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