Practice Areas
Steven Bird is a Consultant in Criminal Defence, Financial Crime and Regulatory team at Hodge Jones & Allen.
He specialises in serious fraud, regulatory and criminal cases, but especially:-
• serious fraud, including insider dealing, bribery and corruption
• murder and other serious offences of violence;
• gross negligence manslaughter
• large drug cases
• confiscation and restraint proceedings
• various regulatory matters (including corporate compliance under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, trading standards investigations, health and safety investigations or investigations involving financial regulation)
• rape and other serious sexual offences.
Steven has been rated as a star individual in the Chambers and Partners directory since 2011 and has been described as having “excellent technical experience and ability, allowing him to identify issues at an early stage”. In various directory entries he has been described as “a true class act”, “a lawyer’s lawyer” and “a superb solicitor whose judgement can be trusted implicitly” and it is said that “he has incredible procedural knowledge, and he prepares and supports fabulously.” He remains in that position in the Chambers and Partners rankings and as a leading individual in the Legal 500 for 2025.
Steven has been included in Who’s Who since 2014.
In 2016, Steven was admitted to the List of Counsel at the International Criminal Court.
He is well known for taking on cases where there has been a potential miscarriage of justice and has a busy appellate practice both in the Court of Appeal and by way of applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. He represents previous victims of miscarriages of justice in claiming compensation from the Home Office.
Professional Memberships
• London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association (LCCSA)
• Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association (CALA) (where he is also Chairman)
• Fraud Lawyers Association
• Proceeds of Crime Lawyers Association
Work Highlights
In previous years Steven has defended in numerous high profile fraud cases such as the Guralp Systems corruption case, the Alstom corruption case, two large FCA insider dealing cases, Operation Elveden (involving illegal payments from journalists to police officers for information), land banking frauds, various boiler room frauds, the LIBOR and Foreign Exchange investigations and corruption involving the EBRD.
He also represented Jonathan King in his aborted trial in 2018, which collapsed following considerable defence pressure concerning the flawed disclosure regime of the investigation and which was widely publicised during the summer of 2018. The case was stopped by the trial judge as an abuse of process.