Simon maintains a busy practice in employment, discrimination, and education law and accepts instructions across the full range of matters within these fields.

Before coming to the bar, Simon worked as a Legal Caseworker for United Voices of the World (‘UVW’), a trade union with a membership composed primarily of low-paid and precarious migrant workers. In this role, he regularly appeared unassisted in the Employment Tribunal in matters across the spectrum of employment law, including in multi-day hearings in discrimination, whistleblowing, and trade union detriment claims. Simon has also represented Employment Tribunal claimants on behalf of the Free Representation Unit and in this capacity was successful in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (see Mbola v Royal Mail [2022] EAT 2).

Outside of employment law, Simon also has substantial education law experience, having worked as a paralegal at Coram Children’s Legal Centre and as a volunteer representative for the School Exclusion Project. Simon is therefore familiar with appealing Education, Health, and Care Plans to SENDIST, and has experience representing families of excluded children in Governors’ Disciplinary Committee and Independent Review Panel hearings.

Employment and Discrimination

Simon has experience across a wide range of employment and discrimination matters. Recent work includes:

• Acting on behalf of an embassy worker whose employer sought to assert state immunity in respect of their Employment Tribunal claim.
   
• Representing an NHS employee whose fixed-term contract was not renewed in a successful claim for unfair dismissal and redundancy pay.
   
• Acting for trade union convenors in separate proceedings under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and in an equal pay claim.
   
• Representing a construction worker in a preliminary hearing on employment status who was found to be a worker on the basis that a right of substitution was not genuine.
   
• Securing a favourable settlement at a Judicial Mediation in a whistleblowing and unfair dismissal claim.
   
• Advising on a range of issues including constructive dismissal, sexual harassment, failure to make reasonable adjustments, and pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

Education

Simon regularly accepts instructions in appeals against the contents of EHC plans and in disability discrimination claims in the First-tier Tribunal.

Prior to coming to the Bar, Simon worked as a paralegal at Coram Children’s Legal Centre and as a volunteer representative for the School Exclusion Project.

Public Inquiries

Simon was instructed as junior counsel in Module 9 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, acting for the Trades Union Congress as part of a team with Sam Jacobs and Ruby Peacock.