On Thursday 21st November 2024, I had the privilege of being instructed in my first ever Court of Appeal appeal, led by Martin Westgate KC.
The appeal concerned the operation of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 (TFA), which banned landlords from charging fees to tenants.
We argued, on behalf of our client (the tenant) that various fees that she had been required to pay to her landlord, before TFA came in, but which hadn’t been returned to her after TFA’s introduction or before her landlord started ‘no fault’ ‘section 21’ eviction proceedings, acted as a bar to her eviction, because those unreturned fees were now ‘prohibited payments’ under TFA.
The Appeal was a ‘leapfrog’ appeal straight from the County Court, which meant that we skipped the usual next level in the appeal process, which is normally an appeal before a Circuit Judge in the County Court. Leapfrog appeals are extremely rare.
I had represented the client before the District Judge in the County Court, instructed by Hackney Community Law Centre (HCLC), before we asked Martin Westgate KC to lead me in the Court of Appeal.
On the tube, on my way to the Court of Appeal, I suddenly became very emotional. I realised that 14 years ago this month, I had visited HCLC for the first time, CV in hand, to ask if it had any volunteer positions.
3 years earlier, at the end of 2007, I had been forced to give up all of my previous professional and volunteer positions after a traumatic political experience, which led to me experiencing unemployment and signing on for the first time in my life. As I tried to rebuild my life and build a new career in law, I had received rejection after rejection after rejection, not on the basis of my skills or experience but because my previously good reputation was mud.
HCLC course-corrected my life for the better, by opening its doors to me, allowing me to firstly become a day volunteer, then a full time intern, then its paid development officer, and a legal caseworker, before I passed my Bar Course in 2014 and left the Law Centre to begin my pupillage in 2018.
It was only because of HCLC’s complete support for me that I was admitted to Inner Temple as a student member and then finally made it to the Bar.
For my very first Court of Appeal case to be for HCLC and a HCLC client was therefore beyond special.
I don’t know what my professional future holds but today I am taking stock of my journey so far and I am feeling so very grateful.
Thank you, Hackney Community Law Centre.
(photo l – r: Me, Martin Westgate KC and HCLC Instructing Solicitors Isabel Taylor and Kevin Long)