Farrar's Building

Head of Chambers: Paul Lewis KC

Chief Executive & Director of Clerking: Paul Cray

Chambers Manager: Steve Gurnett

Tenants: 63

THE CHAMBERS Farrar’s Building is a long-established specialist civil and common law set of chambers based in London with a strong historic regional presence in Wales.

Chambers areas of practice include the following: personal injury; clinical negligence; employment; credit hire; civil fraud and fundamental dishonesty; serious and white-collar crime; health and safety; inquests; disciplinary; regulatory; professional negligence; insurance; property damage; product liability; trusts and probate; commercial law; costs; travel & international; and public inquiries (see individual profiles).

Over the years, chambers has provided a number of judges in the House of Lords, Court of Appeal and elsewhere, and current members sit as deputy High Court judges, recorders and in other public positions. Farrar’s Building prides itself on being a friendly and reliable set, which is efficiently clerked and administered by an experienced and long-established team. Chambers has a reputation for excellence, with members acting for a variety of corporate bodies, insurance companies, prosecuting authorities, sporting bodies and players, disciplinary, regulatory and professional bodies, as well as individuals. Members act in privately funded cases and under conditional fee agreements.

WORK UNDERTAKEN - Chambers core areas of practice are:

Personal Injury & Clinical Negligence: Farrar’s Building is recognised as a leading set of chambers in both personal injury and clinical negligence. Personal injury is the largest field of practice within chambers. Chambers is involved in the whole spectrum of cases ranging from catastrophic brain and spinal injury claims to lower value multi-track and fast-track work. In clinical negligence, members are regularly instructed on behalf of both claimants and defendants (including NHS Resolution, medical defence organisations, private hospitals and independent clinicians).

Health, Safety and Public Inquiries: The health and safety team works closely with, and benefits from, our strong PI team. Chambers has been involved in a number of high-profile cases in this area and has a tradition of acting in large-scale disasters, including the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Post Office Horizon Inquiry, Undercover Policing Inquiry, Grenfell Inquiry, Infected Blood Inquiry and the Brook House Inquiry. Historically, our team have been involved in the Hatfield Rail Disaster, the Ladbroke Grove Rail Disaster and the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.

Insurance & Property Damage: Chambers has experience and expertise of handling all forms of liability insurance, business interruption, life, permanent health and critical illness insurance, property damage/nuisance and motor insurance. It acts on behalf of insurance brokers, policyholders, third party claimants and all the major insurers.

Employment: Chambers and members of the employment law group are recognised in the field for their efficient, commercially sensitive and competitive approach. Members act at all stages of employment disputes by advising, drafting pleadings and providing advocacy before employment tribunals, the EAT and the higher courts.

Crime: Chambers has a specialist criminal team, involved in major fraud and serious crime cases, and has close links with Wales where it remains a dominant force on the Welsh Circuit. Chambers is and has been involved in many of the major cases on the circuit and members of the crime team are highly sought-after.

Regulatory & Disciplinary: Farrar’s Building has been heavily involved in the development and administration of disciplinary proceedings over the past 40 years. Chambers provide specialist advice and advocacy across the full range of regulatory and disciplinary law. The depth of knowledge and understanding that the team at Farrar’s Building has to offer comes not only from its members who have experience of appearing before all major disciplinary and regulatory tribunals, but also from those members who regularly advise and chair such panels themselves. Members are regularly instructed in complex, document intensive matters and in particular, cases involving allegations of dishonesty. Our team acts for accountants, chartered surveyors, architects, health care professionals and solicitors amongst many other professions.

Public Law: Members of Farrar’s Building are regularly instructed in public law matters and possess significant depth and breadth of experience in this area. They also have first-hand experience of working in-house within government organisations.

A number of junior members are currently part of the Attorney General’s scheme and regularly accept instructions from a wide variety of government clients.

Examples of public law matters undertaken include claims involving Judicial Review, Human Rights, unlawful detention, human trafficking, policy challenges, asylum claims, statutory appeals and subject access requests.