Josef Cannon KC

Silk: 2024 | Call: 2002

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Josef Cannon KC
Daryl Hughes, Senior Practice Manager

Josef Cannon KC’s practice at the Bar focuses on licensing, town and country planning, regulatory work, and property including landlord and tenant. He was appointed King’s Counsel in 2024. He is co-chair of the Cornerstone licensing team and a member of the cross-disciplinary practice group Cornerstone Climate.

He acts for and advises a wide range of local authorities, the licensed trade, developers, regulatory bodies, landlords and private individuals. He is also an accredited mediator, with particular expertise in mediating disputes in the public sector, particularly where they relate to planning or licensing.

Josef is a graduate of King’s College, London, and was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 2002.

He is recognised as a leading junior, in both licensing and planning, by Chambers and Partners and Legal 500, as well as in the Planning Magazine survey of the leading planning barristers.

For licensing, both Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 rank him in Band 1. Chambers and Partners notes that he is “admired for his personable advocacy style“, and he is praised in Legal 500 for being an “incredibly approachable advocate, with a style committees appreciate. Has achieved great results in very challenging circumstances.”

In planning Legal 500 recognises him as a leading junior and describes him as “A first-rate member of the planning bar, [with] a stunning ability as both an advocate and a lawyer”. Chambers and Partners notes his “very commercial mindset”, and that he is “efficient and easy to deal with”.

For licensing he represents all sides of the licensing debate with a particular specialism in noise-related matters, sex licensing and outdoor music festivals; his planning practice is broad, but Joe has particular expertise in residential development appeals involving housing land supply issues.

Josef also has experience of regulatory work (including significant experience prosecuting and defending environmental matters) and continues to be instructed by those involved in landlord and tenant disputes.

Josef graduated in 2017 from the acclaimed accredited mediation course at Regents University, led by the late Paul Randolph. He mediates all forms of dispute but has particular expertise in the fields of planning, licensing and the public sector, where he is able to bring to bear his knowledge of those fields from his practice at the Bar.

Josef also regularly lectures and gives seminars on the benefits of using mediation to resolve disputes in the public sector and is committed to increasing the number of such disputes that are settled via mediation.

In 2020, he and three colleagues began producing the UnPlanned podcast, focusing on issues and practice at the planning bar in a light-hearted and relaxed format.

Expertise