Bindmans has been recognised as one of the Best Law Firms 2019 by The Times. The inaugural list of 200 best law firms in England and Wales, determined by a survey among clients and peers, identified Bindmans as the top firm in both Administrative & Public Law and Human Rights work; and commended in the Immigration category.

The judges’ comments stated:

Founded in 1974 by the doyen of human rights law, Sir Geoffrey Bindman, with three others, to protect the rights and freedoms of “ordinary people”, Bindmans has established a reputation for challenging injustice and has been at the forefront of groundbreaking, headline-grabbing cases for more than four decades.

In the wake of the EU referendum, the firm acted for the People’s Challenge, the crowdfunded, grassroots campaign that joined in Gina Miller’s litigation to force the government to have a parliamentary vote before triggering Article 50 — the mechanism for quitting the EU.

It acted for families of the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster in their 27-year fight for justice, and is representing UK Facebook users whose data was harvested and may have been used by the now- defunct Cambridge Analytica.

In the New Labour era, its founder was the party’s favourite lawyer, representing Jack Straw, Jack Cunningham, Frank Dobson and Keith Vaz. However, in 2012 he told BBC Radio 4 that its former leader Tony Blair should be prosecuted for the “crime of aggression” for leading the country into the Iraq War.

Bindman was knighted in 2007 for services to human rights, and in 2011 awarded honorary Queen’s Counsel — given to individuals for significant contributions to the law of England and Wales outside the courts.

Among the firm’s 60-plus lawyers, he is one of three honorary silks, with Stephen Grosz and Saimo Chahal.

The firm’s unrivalled human rights litigation has included successful challenges to the unlawful retention of DNA, fingerprints and other personal information, and to the policing of protests and the treatment of protesters.

In CN v UK — a test case on modern slavery — it secured the first finding against the UK before the European Court of Human Rights for breach of the right to be free from forced labour.

The team is challenging the law relating to assisted suicide in the case of Omid T, a 55-year-old man diagnosed with an incurable disease, and seeking compensation for a man, abandoned by his father as a child, who is claiming that he suffered psychiatric damage after discovering at the age of 26 that his father was a police spy

This article was published in the Times Best Law Firms 2019

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