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Jessie Brennan

Solicitor

Public Law and Human Rights

Jessie is a solicitor in our Public Law and Human Rights team. Her practice covers a wide range of judicial review work, with a focus on the protection and enforcement of the rights of disabled people and those without regularised immigration status in the UK.

She regularly represents families with disabled children and is successful in securing increased packages of support from their local CCG and/or local authorities. In addition she works with unaccompanied asylum seeking children to challenge age assessments as well as with care leavers to challenge unlawful attempts to withdraw support and otherwise secure proper levels of support.

Jessie also represents clients seeking their release from immigration detention and in connected claims for compensation arising out of their unlawful detention under immigration powers.

She also often advises clients on the deletion of cautions and other connected information from their police records.

Jessie was part of the Bindmans team that won the Solicitors’ Journal Legal Aid Team of the Year Award 2016, and she assisted the Public Law solicitors in the successful procurement litigation that helped force the MoJ U-turn on criminal Legal Aid ‘dual contracts’.

Education and career
  • Jessie graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy in 2012
  • She then completed the Graduate Diploma in Law at BPP in 2014, and the LPC at the University of Law in 2015
  • Jessie joined Bindmans as a paralegal in 2015, and qualified as a solicitor in March 2018 after completing her training contract. Before coming to Bindmans, she worked as a paralegal at a Just for Kids Law and volunteered at a law centre and migrant support centre
Experience

Jessie’s cases include: 

  • Securing the release of asylum seekers detained at Napier Barracks during the Covid-19 outbreak
  • A challenge to the failure of the Government to adequately support unpaid family carers during the Covid-19 pandemic (R (CC) v HM Treasury & Anor [2020] EWHC 2817 (Admin)
  • Securing an amendment to the ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): how to self-isolate when you travel to the UK’ Guidance which allowed people with additional health needs or disabilities to leave their home as necessary to promote their health and welfare  
  • The successful Supreme Court challenge to the ban on ethical divestment in local authority pensions schemes [R(PSC) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2020] UKSC 16
  • Successfully defending two judicial review claims brought against the British Standards Institute 
  • Securing access to vital medical and dental treatment for a disabled adult with severe Autism Spectrum Disorder at her local hospital. This challenge involved three different NHS bodies working collaboratively to commission the necessary treatment for our client 
  • Representing four families in their successful judicial review claim against the removal of SEND provision for children in Worcestershire without adequate transition planning where it was found the local authorities actions had breached the Claimants’ legitimate expectations  (RD v Worcestershire County Council [2019] EWHC 449 (Admin))
  • Overturning the decision of the Crown Court to refuse an appeal by way of case stated (R (Pegram) v Bristol Crown Court [2019] EWHC 965 (Admin))

During her training Jessie assisted the head of the department John Halford, both in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court; in the Public Law Project’s successful challenge to the Government’s ill-fated legal aid ‘residence test’: R (Public Law Project) v Lord Chancellor [2016] UKSC 39 and the ground-breaking ‘Article 50’ case, which ruled that the Prime Minister did not have legal authority unilaterally to trigger UK withdrawal from the European Union: R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5

Professional memberships
  • Young Legal Aid Lawyers
  • Human Rights Lawyers’ Association
  • Young Public Lawyers’ Group