Jed Pennington

Jed is a public law and human rights specialist, with a focus on judicial reviews and civil actions on behalf of people who experience unlawful treatment in the immigration system.

Jed is a public law and human rights specialist, with a focus on judicial reviews and civil actions on behalf of people who experience unlawful treatment in the immigration system.

Most of his clients are individuals represented under legal aid. He also has experience of representing NGOs as claimants in public interest judicial reviews using the statutory Costs Capping Order regime. He has acted in numerous high profile judicial reviews relating to unlawful decision making in the immigration system. He has more than 15 years’ post-qualification experience in acting in civil actions against state authorities and private contractors exercising state functions, and negotiating settlements in this context. He has acted in inquests and related civil claims for bereaved families of people who have died in immigration detention, prisons and mental health detention.

He supervises a team of solicitors, trainee solicitors and caseworkers. He is committed to training the next generation of solicitors working in legal aid.

Jed’s current and recent work includes:

‍a group of judicial reviews that challenges the policy on assessing good character that restricts the ability of refugees and other people seeking international protection to naturalise as British citizens

acting for one of the claimants (ASM) in the lead judicial review claims challenging the government’s policy of relocating people seeking asylum to Rwanda (Court of Appeal and Supreme Court), a group of claims following on from this which the SSHD conceded by agreeing to consider asylum claims in the UK, and a group of civil actions on behalf of people detained for removal to Rwanda in 2022 and 2024

leading a team in a judicial review that secured an Article 3 ECHR independent inquiry into events at the controversial Manston detention facility in 2022 (permission granted December 2023, settled January 2025) and in related civil actions

a judicial review on behalf of NGO Medical Justice which established a duty to consult in the context of adults at risk immigration detention policies

acting in a number of successful challenges to the use of controversial powers to require people in the immigration system to wear GPS tags

He is individually ranked or recognised in both the Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 directories in the Administrative & Public Law and Civil Liberties & Human Rights practice areas. He received an award at the 2012 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards in recognition of his work acting for people in immigration detention.

He is a member of Law for Change’s panel of legal experts. He is an experienced legal trainer and is a contributor to the Free Movement website. Recent training includes co-writing an advanced judicial review course (for Free Movement), co-training on the detention provisions in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (for ILPA) and a webinar on challenging limbo in the asylum inadmissibility process (for Free Movement). He co-authored updates on immigration detention for LAG from 2013 to 2020. He was co-convenor of ILPA’s removals, detention and offences working group for a number of years. He has been a trustee for Detention Action and ILPA.

Jed completed his training at Wilson Solicitors, qualifying in 2010. He was at Bhatt Murphy Solicitors from 2010 to 2020, before returning to Wilson in August 2021. He became a partner at Wilson Solicitors in January 2023 and Joint Head of the Public Law & Human Rights Department in December 2024. He has a law degree from the University of Cambridge.