Browne Jacobson’s education team has again been confirmed as a national powerhouse after securing five Tier 1 rankings relating to Education in the latest edition of Legal 500 and maintaining a Band 1 UK-wide ranking for Education in Chambers & Partners UK 2023.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has again been confirmed as a national powerhouse after securing five Tier 1 rankings relating to Education in the latest edition of Legal 500 and maintaining a Band 1 UK-wide ranking for Education in Chambers & Partners UK 2023.
This means that nationally the firm and all five of its regional teams in Birmingham, Exeter, London, Manchester and Nottingham have again been awarded the directory’s highest ranking. These directories reflect extensive research and analysis by the respective teams, who conduct thousands of interviews to select the very best law firms and lawyers in the UK.
Described by Chambers as providing “a stellar education practice” and by Legal 500 as “deeply impressive and hugely knowledgeable”, the firm’s education practice supports over 1,300 schools and academies every year from its five-office national network. The team’s market-leading reputation means that they are often the first port of call for education clients seeking advice and support on matters attracting political, societal and media attention and a hallmark of the team’s approach is to combine their legal expertise and deep education sector understanding to provide advice that enables their clients to navigate the evolving education landscape.
This year Legal 500 complimented the Browne Jacobson Education team on its “incredibly professional, approachable and knowledgeable workforce” in which “every colleague is exceptional and there is never any variation from the highest possible standards”.
Chambers UK 2023 noted that, clients value such “an exceptionally well-regarded education practice” and the support of "an extremely capable team of education lawyers with strength in depth, coupled with pragmatism and empathy”.
A number of individual lawyers within the Browne Jacobson education team were also celebrated by this year’s legal directories. National Head of Education Mark Blois is again named in Legal 500’s ‘Hall of Fame’ for Education and Partners Dai Durbridge (North West), Julia Green (London, South West) and Richard Freeth and Nick MacKenzie (West Midlands) are identified as 'Leading Individuals'. They are joined by Legal Director Lydia Michaelson-Yeates and Senior Associates Hayley O’Sullivan (West Midlands), Victoria Hatton (South West) and Philip Wood (West Midlands) named as ‘Rising Stars’.
Six lawyers in Browne Jacobson’s Education team have also this year received a UK wide individual ranking by Chambers UK including Mark Blois (Band One), Nick Mackenzie and Bettina Rigg (Band Two), Dai Durbridge (Band Three), Richard Freeth and Charlotte Antoniou (Band Four) and additionally Tom Briant-Evans is again ranked as an ‘Associate to Watch’.
Partner and National Head of Education, Mark Blois, said “It is a real honour to receive such market-leading rankings and exceptional client feedback in the latest legal directories. We thank all our clients for their ongoing support. This fantastic set of results also reflects the hard work of every member of the Browne Jacobson Education team and I am also grateful to all of my colleagues for their ongoing commitment to serving our clients and the wider schools sector.”
Regardless of the outcome of ballots on industrial action, unless there is drastic change to funding for schools in relation to pay increases, it will be unusual to find any organisational budget that is not impacted by the current economic situation.
There’s been little evidence of interventions or financial management reviews this year and it appears the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has re-focussed on financial delivery. It’s also telling that there were no discernible changes to the reporting of financial irregularities in the Academies Trust Handbook 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel De Souza, has recently published a report “Beyond the labels: a SEND system which works for every child, every time”, which she intends to sit alongside the DfE’s SEND Review (2019) and SEND Green Paper (2022) and which she hopes will put children’s voices at the heart of the government’s review of SEND system.
As well as providing day-to-day support to help you focus on managing your settings, we also provide training and professional development on a range of topics to keep you and your staff up-to-date.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHCR) recently issued new, non-statutory guidance regarding the wearing of natural or protective hairstyles, specifically in reference to their representation in uniform, behaviour or standalone appearance policies.
Emma Hughes, head of HR services at Browne Jacobson, explains how CST’s updated executive pay report and the linked benchmarking service from XpertHR can help trust boards make robust decisions on pay.
There’s greater opportunity than ever for parents, carers and guardians to voice any concerns they have relating to their child’s education and for their concerns to be heard and to be taken seriously. While most staff in schools and academies are conscious of their legal duties relating to complaints management, many are struggling to cope with such a significant increase in the volume of complaints they must manage.
This guidance has been prepared to support academy trusts (Trusts) who want to hold a fully virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) or a hybrid AGM, as we know that Trusts may want to be prepared for future disruption as well as having a general interest in holding more meetings virtually. The guidance also applies to other meetings of the Members (known as General Meetings).
We’re pleased to collaborate with Lloyds Bank, who recently asked us and audit and risk specialists Crowe UK to offer guidance that academy trusts would find helpful when considering setting up a trading subsidiary.
The DfE has published new guidance and opened the application process for window two of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) for 2022/2023, with a fund of £86m in trust capacity funding focused particularly on education investment areas.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established in March 2015. We now have its report. As you would expect with such a broad scope, the report is long and makes a number of far-reaching recommendations. In this article, Dai Durbridge highlights seven of the 20 recommendations, sets out how they could impact on schools and suggests what steps to take now.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has been named as winner of the ‘Legal Advisors to Education Institutions’ category at the Education Investor Awards 2022 for a record sixth time.
Since the new Suspensions and Exclusions Statutory Guidance was published, we have received a lot of questions about the use of managed moves. For the first time, the Statutory Guidance does explain what a managed move is, but in relatively broad terms and does not cover the mechanics of how a managed move should operate.
Over 3000 young people from across the UK and Ireland took part in a virtual legal careers insight event, aimed at making the legal profession more diverse.
Holly Quirk, an associate barrister in Browne Jacobson’s Manchester office, was awarded the Legal Professional of the Year Award at this year’s Manchester Young Talent Awards.
The risk of assault against staff is, sadly, something that all schools need to consider carefully. Here one legal expert explains what they can do to protect staff and ensure they fulfil their duty of care.
