"It's been a great privilege to be a corporate lawyer and do human rights work - I feel humbled by it all"

Starting out and growing a firm

My legal ambitions began when I was 14. I clicked with the law as soon as I understood the impact it has and gained an understanding of how lawyers are key to the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Around that time there was a TV series called The Main Chance. The lead character was a solicitor who drove a Jensen Interceptor. I really liked that car, it definitely reinforced my aspirations!

I was a trainee solicitor at a city council in the late 1970s. I got to go to court and took on a lot of responsibility. But it also felt like the graveyard of ambition because the only way of moving on was if somebody retired. Once qualified, I moved to a practice in Colchester – it was very modern and had a word processor, which was unheard of in the early 80s.

In 1983, I opened a high street practice with another solicitor, David Jones. It was the two of us and a Samurai computer with eight inch floppy drives. I did everything from criminal to family law and personal injury claims while David handled conveyancing and wills.

We devised a strapline on the back of a cigarette packet that we would “be the modern, friendly service”. Our primary goal was to deliver excellence for clients. It all sounds a bit corny now, but back then it was fairly revolutionary.

We also had a side business developing handheld computer software for legal aid practitioners and conveyancing solicitors. We sold quite a lot. Believe it or not, they were all on cards that held two kilobytes of data!

Human rights: casework

Driven by my belief in fundamental rights and freedoms, I’d always wanted to pursue some human rights work. I thought it would involve a couple of hours work on Sundays – but it took over my life.

Throughout the 80s and 90s I pursued human rights cases around my day job. I’d start before work at 6am and pick things up again after 10pm. It was a struggle sometimes, but it was worth it. 

My first human rights case came about unexpectedly. A woman approached me alleging she’d been sexually abused as a child by her adoptive family. She'd already visited three other firms, and they wouldn't take her on. It was the mid-80s and there was very little understanding of the long-term emotional effects of childhood sexual abuse at that time, and little – if any – litigation surrounding these situations.

It was a tricky case. The claimant was in her 30s, and typically you only have three years after turning 18 to pursue personal injury claims. I obtained legal aid to file a personal injury claim for her.

We took it all the way to the House of Lords – it was a rollercoaster to get there. We lost in front of the first judge, then won in the High Court and again in the Court of Appeal. Finally, at the House of Lords we lost.

It felt unfair not only for this marooned woman to get no remedy, but for all the other victims who had this experience – I wasn’t ready to give up. I knew of the European Court of Human Rights, but I didn’t know how to get there. I persuaded Professor Kevin Boyle – a human rights warrior at The University of Essex – to help me. 

Advocating at the European Court for the first time was daunting, but I was well-prepared to give it my best shot. I’d had a lot of experience in the lower courts, where it can be very rough and tumble, but the European Court was actually in some ways easier because the judges don’t interrupt you. The most difficult part was answering the judges’ questions.

We won unanimously in front of the European Commission but lost in the European Court. It was a tragic end for the case and my claimant.

Two decades later, the House of Lords reversed their decision, citing their original conclusion as “bad law”. U-turns like that are almost unheard of.

The human rights world can be very frustrating – my most interesting case, Bankovic, is a prime example. We were seeking justice against 13 NATO states for the staff killed at a television centre in Belgrade that was bombed by NATO during the Balkan War. NATO claimed the TV station was being used as a military base, but there was no evidence of that.

We reached the highest part of the European Court of Human Rights – the Grand Chamber – but lost. We were pursuing a very novel argument, so it wasn't surprising. Later, after the Iraq conflict, our reasoning was used by lawyers representing victims who'd been abused by military forces. On that occasion, the court was convinced by the argument. Even when a case has been unsuccessful, good can still come from it.

In the 1990s, acting with academics from the University of Essex and other lawyers, we successfully took around 70 cases to the European Court. These cases were introduced through the Kurdish Human Rights Project which had been established with the assistance of the University of Essex.

We were seeking remedies for Kurdish people in Turkey whose rights had been violated either because they had been the victims of torture or arbitrary killings or when their villages were destroyed. We won most of the claims and some of the principles concerning the right to life, torture and inhuman treatment, and the jurisprudence of the court around effective investigations established through these cases still apply today.

Human rights: policy work

By the early 2000s, my role at the firm had become more corporate as I was handling business sales, purchases, mergers and acquisitions. This wasn't compatible with human rights casework, so I joined the Human Rights Committee at the Law Society to engage with the policy work on human rights which the Law Society was involved with. I’ve been an active member for 20 years and I’ve served three terms as chair.

Our Lawyers at Risk programme aims to protect those who are intimidated, arrested and charged with spurious offences. In places like Turkey, Azerbaijan and Russia, lawyers are locked up for years because they are identified with the clients who they represent. We send intervention letters, statements and reports to individual government officials and the UN, and collaborate with other bar associations and lawyers’ organisations to raise the profile of persecuted lawyers worldwide. We also carry out trial observations in Turkey to support lawyers at risk.

Lawyers are not only at risk abroad. We’ve recently seen immigration lawyers in the UK facing abuse. The riots we saw in 2024 were a tiny flavour of what happens widely other countries.

Achievements

I don't talk about my successes very much – my wife encourages me to be more open about this. It's been a great privilege to be both a corporate lawyer and pursue human rights work. Everything I’ve done throughout my career has given me so much satisfaction – I feel humbled by it all. 

Success on any case is wonderful, whether it’s completing a tricky business sale or getting justice for people. Knowing you’ve achieved what your client wants is always satisfying. It’s a very good feeling when your win makes a positive difference and people can rebuild their lives.

Today my firm is part of the Lawfront Group which employs over 800 people – it’s been an exciting journey. In the 90s I did a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in legal practice. It taught me everything I’d been doing wrong! But it also gave me confidence to scale up the business.

It's difficult to choose a career highlight – it's always the last thing you did, isn't it? Over the past three years I’ve been the UK representative on a Council of Europe Committee. I've been entrusted with the task of drafting a new European Convention for the Protection of Lawyers.  

The convention is a response to the ongoing persecution of lawyers around the world. It contains a range of protections against persecution and attack, and strengthens the rights of lawyers in a number of different ways. It also enhances the protection of client confidentiality. It will be the first binding piece of international law involving the rights of lawyers worldwide.

I never expected to be involved with anything like this – these things don't happen very often. It’s currently going through the final stages of approval at the Council of Europe before it's open for signature. It will hopefully come into effect sometime this year. It's been a wonderful honour to be part of.

What’s next?

Whenever you do something big you think, “I've learned all these new things and I want to use that insight – what's next?” I'm 68 now, and “what’s next” should probably be retirement. I don't think I'll ever really retire though.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a master's in documentary filmmaking. I'd like to tell the story of the Kurdish human rights lawyer Tahir Elçi – he's an unsung hero. He became a great friend of mine through the work I did in Turkey. He was a brave character who acted for so many people in very difficult cases. He ultimately lost his life to protect other people’s fundamental rights. A documentary about his life and work would do something towards achieving justice for him and his work.

There are very few pure human rights jobs in practice – it's not easy to get into. Most jobs are in non-governmental organisations. But of course, immigration and sometimes crime and family law do touch on human rights issues.

Ultimately, if you've got something you believe in then do it – to hell with the consequences. Even if you have to do something else in your day job to pay the bills, don't let go of what matters to you. You won't necessarily get to where you want to go, but the journey will be much more exciting.

Pictured above: Tony with Tahir Elçi inside the Grand Chamber at the European Court in 2007. Tony in Strasbourg. Tony speaking at the Law Society's Day of the Endangered Lawyer Event in 2025, with Law Society President Richard Atkinson and solicitor Sara Chandler. Tony and his wife Elizabeth outside the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.