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Clare specialises in all areas of media and information law, including defamation, privacy, data protection, open justice and harassment.

What the directories say

“A modern and engaging practitioner with a pragmatic and positive outlook. Clare is a future star.” – Legal 500, 2025

"Clare Wisson has a sharp legal mind. Her legal advice is outstanding and includes real commercial insights which clients value." – Chambers & Partners, 2024

"Clare is even-handed, knowledgeable and to the point. She is fun to work with and a real problem solver." – Chambers & Partners, 2024

“Very user friendly, impresses clients and able to get stuck into a case. Advice is sensible and well-considered.” – Legal 500, 2024

Overview

Clare undertakes work spanning all aspects of media and information law, acting for both claimants and defendants alike. She is ranked for Defamation/Privacy by Chambers & Partners (‘Up & Coming’, 2024) and by Legal 500 (‘Rising Star’, 2024).

Clare’s clients include national newspaper and magazine publishers, broadcasters, NGOs, charities, and private companies. Clare has appeared in the Court of Appeal, High Court (led and unled), County Court, Crown Court and coronial courts. 

Clare is a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's preferred panel of counsel. In appropriate cases, Clare can be instructed under the Bar’s Direct Access Scheme.

Clare has significant experience of providing pre-publication legal and regulatory advice in relation to both print and broadcast media. She currently advises the BBC, Channel 5 and The Times. She was previously on the duty lawyer rota for Jewish News, The Guardian and The Sun.  She provides regular pre-publication advice to NGOs, companies, freelance investigative journalists and private individuals. She is also a Contributing Editor to the quarterly Zoom-In magazine and the weekly Zoom-In Brief.

In Hilary term 2021 Clare was a full-time Judicial Assistant. She assisted Mr Justice Chamberlain and other High Court judges and masters with a wide range of  public, media and international law matters, both procedural and substantive.

In addition, Clare spent three months on full-time secondment with Reynolds Porter Chamberlain in 2020, where she worked closely with the media team on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious matters.

Prior to joining the Bar, Clare spent four years working in public policy and human rights, including at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights and at a cross-party political office as a parliamentary legal officer.

Privacy, data protection and freedom of information

  • DRP v Persons Unknown (High Court) (2023) – secured interim injunctive relief for misuse of private information, after intimate photographs of DRP were published on social media (for C). 

  • Titheradge v Information Commissioner [2023] UKFTT 446 (GRC) & [2023] UKFTT 447 (GRC) – represented an award-winning investigative BBC reporter in two appeals seeking Body Worn Video footage from Merseyside Police and British Transport Police (here). 

  • A Child v Associate Newspapers Ltd (2023) - drafted an infant settlement advice for a Part 8 misuse of private information claim.

  • Phone hacking litigation (2021 – 2022) – acted for Mirror Group Newspapers  in claims brought by numerous celebrities and other individuals relating to allegations of phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering activities (for D).

  • Fernie v Burton Waters Management Ltd and Banks Long & Co (County Court) (2022) – successfully applied to strike out a claim for negligence, breach of the UK GDPR, misuse of private information brought by a litigant-in-person (for D2).

  • Warren v DSG Retail Ltd [2021] EWHC 2168 (QB) – appeared in the High Court (unled) representing the Claimant in a strike out application in a claim for misuse of private information and negligence (for C).

  • KEJ v The Chief Constable of X Police & the CPS – successfully represented the Claimant in a breach of confidence and data protection claim for breaching her lifelong anonymity as a survivor of ‘stranger rape’ and disclosing her identity to the perpetrator (settled).

Defamation

  • Regularly advise on and draft pre-action correspondence, on behalf of both Claimants and Defendants.

  • Fraser v NWK (ongoing) – counsel for the Claimant in a defamation and harassment claim.

  • Thompson v Budden & The British Kendo Association (2023) – successfully applied to strike out a libel claim in its entirety (for D1).

  • Millett v Corbyn [2021] EMLR 19 – appeal by the former Leader of the Labour Party against decisions made at the trial of preliminary issues (judicial assistant to Warby LJ).

  • Campbell v MGN [2021] EWHC 601 (QB) – trial on preliminary issues as to the meaning of an extract from a newspaper article (judicial assistant to Johnson J).

Open justice and reporting restrictions

  • R v Bateman (2023) – successfully applied to vary a s.45 YJCEA reporting restriction order to enable BBC Wales to publish an interview.

  • Sampson & Malcahy (2023) – Counsel for the BBC for an application challenging reporting restrictions in respect of coronial proceedings.

  • R v Akle, Bond and Whiteley (2020) – counsel for an NGO seeking remote attendance at a resumed jury trial in May 2020 pursuant to the Coronavirus Act 2020.

  • LM, AW & Ors v Ministry of Justice, Secretary of State for Justice and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (2020) – successfully represented the Claimants in a contested anonymity application.

  • Re Contempt Application Against the BBC [2021] EWHC 170 (QB) – Divisional Court case in which the BBC was fined £28,000 for making and transmitting a six-second unauthorised recording of court proceedings (judicial assistant to Warby J, as he then was).

  • As a pupil, Clare worked with her supervisor Jude Bunting on the Media Lawyers Association intervention in the Supreme Court in Cape Intermediate Holdings Ltd v Dring [2019] 3 WLR 429 on third party applications for court material.

International matters

Clare has expertise in public international law, with a focus on international human rights law. She has been instructed to draft submissions to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Special Rapporteurs in sensitive cases involving journalists and dual nationals. Cases include:

  • Re Jimmy Lai (2023) - member of the international legal team for Jimmy Lai and Sebastien Lai, led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. Mr Lai is a British citizen, prominent pro-democracy activist and publisher imprisoned in Hong Kong.

  • Re Waled Youssef (2020) – acted on behalf of dual national British citizen, who was unlawfully detained in Egypt in life-threatening conditions for “liking” a Facebook post (led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC & Jennifer Robinson).

Select Publications and Talks

  • Contributing author: “Police Misconduct: legal remedies” (Legal Action Group, 2022). Co-authored the Chapter on ‘The police, information rights and data protection’ with Steven Cragg KC (here).

  • Speaker: “Data and Policing” panel, Public Law Project’s ‘Data law for public lawyers, Public law for data lawyers’ Conference (May 2022).

  • Speaker: “Journalists, police and their interaction in the public space”,  Media Law Resource Centre International Committee (July 2020).

  • Assistant editor (2020-present) and headnote writer (2017-2020): European Human Rights Reports (Sweet & Maxwell) (here).