Career
Adam specialises in human rights, public inquiries, constitutional and international law. He has acted in some of the key public law and human rights cases of recent years, including leading cases on the right to protest, human rights during the Covid-19 pandemic and constitutional law. He regularly acts in public inquiries, most recently into Covid-19 and an inquiry relating to allegations of corruption in Gibraltar. His cases often involved issues of high political and constitutional sensitivity.
In 2025, Adam won the award for Advocate’s International Pro Bono Barrister of the Year, and in 2024 he won the Halsbury’s Award for the Rule of Law and was given an honorary doctorate from the University of Law.
Industry Sector Expertise
Human rights, public and constitutional law
Adam is an experienced public and human rights lawyer. He often acts in cases involving developing areas of constitutional law and issues of the highest political sensitivity. He acted for intervenors in the Law Society’s successful judicial review challenge to the Government’s funding of Legal Aid, and in the recent challenge by the Scottish Government over its proposed gender recognition reform bill.
Free expression and the right to protest are areas of particular interest. He has acted in a number of the recent leading cases relating protest, including acting for women’s rights organisation Reclaim These Streets in the leading case on protest rights in the pandemic, relating to the Metropolitan Police’s response to the Sarah Everard vigil (Leigh and Others), in the first Court of Appeal judgment on protesters held in contempt of court (Cuadrilla Bowland Ltd & Ors v Lawrie & Ors), and in a number of leading cases involving criminal damage and costs in contempt cases.
Adam is a recognised authority on the law relating to Covid-19. His book, Emergency State: How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why it Matters, was published in 2022, and he is currently a Commissioner to Independent Commission on UK Public Health Emergency Powers, chaired by Sir Jack Beatson. From 2020-2021, he was Specialist Advisor to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic and assisted in the writing of five reports. He acted in a number of path-breaking cases relating to the pandemic, including the Good Law Project’s challenge to the Metropolitan Police’s refusal to investigate the Downing Street parties and two key judicial reviews of the hotel quarantine system, on the discriminatory impact of fees (Boardman and Others) and if hotel quarantine is compatible with the right to liberty (Hotta and Others). He acted for a range of people to secure their release from inhumane hotel quarantine conditions, such as international journalists and a severely disabled child, and obtained the first hotel quarantine court injunction of its type. He successfully acted for people unlawfully given fixed penalty notices including the first withdrawal by police of £10,000 FPNS against students. He acted in the successful challenge to the government’s failure to fund equipment for children to engage in online learning during school closures and in two successful judicial reviews of failures by the Home Office to protect asylum seekers at Colnbrook IRCC and immigration detainees at Napier Barracks from COVID-19.
International law
Adam regularly acts in cases involving complex issues of international law, including international human rights law. He is currently acting for the families of British and British-linked hostages of Hamas in Gaza. He regularly acts in cases involving international human rights law issues, including at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, for examine in the ongoing case of Cuciurean v UK, on the human rights implications of costs orders against protesters found in contempt of court orders.
He is currently acting for the former Commissioner of the Royal Gibraltar Police in a corruption inquiry chaired by Sir Peter Openshaw, which raises a range of issues relating to UK Overseas Territories. He acted for the family of Harry Dunn in the judicial review challenge to the Foreign Office’s interpretation of an international agreement with the United States. He regularly advises on the law relating to British Overseas Territories and former colonies.
Inquiries and Inquests
Adam regularly acts in politically sensitive public inquiries and inquests and is ranked as a “Spotlight Individual” in Chambers and Partners for Independent Investigations. He is currently acting for the Clinically Vulnerable Families group and a coalition of baby and maternity charities in the Covid-19 Public Inquiry, and for the former Commissioner of the Royal Gibraltar Police in a high-profile corruption Inquiry in Gibraltar. He acted in the investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party, in the Westminster strand of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, in the Manchester Arena Bombing Inquiry, as sole Counsel to the investigation in to the death of Welsh Minister Carl Sargeant and in the Whyte Review investigation into abuse in British gymnastics.
He also regularly acts in high-profile coroners inquests such as into the death of an immigration detainee at Wormwood Scrubs prison, the death of a young woman who took her own life in a mental health hospital and the inquest into the avoidable death of a young HIV positive man in prison.
Actions against the police
Adam is regularly instructed in actions against the police, including claims by protesters, individuals subject to Covid-19 legal enforcement and who have been discriminated against – for example the ongoing case involving Dale Semper, a black bank manager who was subjected to a two-year investigation by the Metropolitan Police following false anonymous allegations against him.
Public outreach and awards
Adam is a passionate advocate, educator and writer on human rights. He founded and chairs the muti-award winning human rights education charity EachOther, set up the widely-read UK Human Rights Blog and hosted the Better Human Podcast. He regularly speaks on human rights law to charities, parliamentary committees and government departments and from 2019 to 2025 was a Visiting Professor of Law at Goldsmiths University. He is the Consultant Editor of the 2020 Prison Law edition of Halsbury’s Laws of England and regularly writes for the New Statesman, Prospect and appears on TV and radio.
Adam has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Law and won the 2024 Halsbury Rule of Law award for his work on the right to protest and the Covid-19 Pandemic.`He was the Lawyer of the Week in The Lawyer magazine. He has been shortlisted for Human Rights Junior of the Year in the 2020 Legal 500 Awards, Human Rights Lawyer of the Year at the Liberty Awards and Legal Personality of the Year at the Solicitors Journal Awards. He has won the Plain English Campaign’s Communicator award for human rights public education.
