Claire McCann

Employment, Discrimination and Public Law

Claire has been ranked in the legal directories since 2007 as a leading employment barrister. She specialises in employment, equality and public law as well as regulatory and human rights law. She is widely recognised for her incisive cross-examination skills, meticulous preparation, speed of response, and her ability to put clients at ease. Highly regarded for her tenacity in court and commercial acumen, she is regularly instructed on behalf of companies, charities, public authorities and central government, trade unions and individuals.

She has a particularly strong reputation for her equality work, including non-employment discrimination cases and judicial reviews. Claire has a significant advisory practice and is sought-after in complex and high-profile litigation. Notable appellate cases include: Semenya v Switzerland (European Court of Human Rights, about Switzerland’s duty to protect Semenya’s Convention rights in the context of sports arbitration); Ajao v Commerzbank (about open justice in employment tribunals); C v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (about transgender and privacy rights); Surtees v Middlesbrough Council (a seminal equal pay case about pay protection); and Elias v Secretary of State for Defence (one of the first cases in which the Court of Appeal considered the ambit of the race equality duty).

Claire contributes to legal textbooks and articles to legal journals and lectures widely on employment law and delivers judicial training on discrimination law at ERA, Trier.

Fee-paid Employment Judge 2020. Recorder 2021.

ELA; ELBA; ILS; ALBA