Public Law in 2025: One Day Symposium
Venue
The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 38 – 43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PEFee
£125 + VAT
We’re pleased to announce that tickets are now available for Public Law in 2025, our annual day-long symposium bringing together leading minds in public law.
This year, the conference will be held at the prestigious and more spacious Royal College of Surgeons. Early Bird tickets are now available for purchase.
What to Expect
This year’s conference will feature a comprehensive case law update, expert-led discussions on judicial review, standing, rationality-based decisions, Guidance/Policy-based challenges, interim relief and Equality Act challenges. We’ll also have breakout sessions tailored for both claimants and defendants.
Public law luminary Professor Liz Fisher, Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Oxford, and newly appointed Board Member of the Office for Environmental Protection, will deliver this year’s keynote address.
Find the full programme below.
Who should attend?
The event is ideal for anyone working in or advising on public law and judicial review – whether in central or local government, claimant practices, or the wider legal sector.
The day will conclude with a forward-looking panel discussion and a relaxed drinks reception – a great opportunity to network and reflect.
Highlights include:
- Keynote speaker
- Breakout sessions offering practical insights for both claimants and defendants
- Expert panel on the future of public law
- Refreshments and networking throughout the day
Tickets
- Early Bird Tickets: £125 + VAT (available until 8 August 2025)
- Standard Tickets: £160 + VAT
- Programme
- 9:00 – Registration and Refreshments
- 9:45 – Opening Address and Keynote
Welcome address by Cornerstone’s Joint Head of Public Law, Estelle Dehon KC.
- 9:50 – Keynote: The Craft of Administrative Law
Administrative law expertise is craft expertise. This keynote from Prof Liz Fisher, Professor of Environmental Law at the University of Oxford, explores what that means in practice, why such expertise is important, and how such expertise can be strengthened.
- 10:15 – Case Law Update
Two of our brightest up and coming public lawyers deliver a comprehensive case law update. With Jackson Sirica and Hannah Taylor
- 10.45 – Breakout Session 1
A. Practical Tips for Central and Local Government in Defending Claims – Josef Cannon KC and Matt Lewin
B. Practical Tips for Bringing Claims – Lois Lane, Jeremy Ogilvie-Harris and Ellen Fotheringham (Public Interest Law Centre)
- 11:30 – Refreshments
- 12:00 – Busybody or Bona Fide? Recent development in the law on ‘Standing’
The rise of group public law litigation in the 1990s saw the courts relax the rules on locus standi. For many years, the general emphasis remained on vindicating the rule of law, rather than focusing on procedural issues such as standing. That trend now appears to be drawing to a close. With the 2022 ruling in Good Law Project v SoS for Health and Social Care, the question of standing has been the subject of renewed debate. This session will explore recent case law on the topic, and provide practical tips for both claimants and defendants who are faced with this question. With Ruchi Parekh
- 12:30 – The Resurgence of Rationality?
Many colourful epithets have been used to describe the high threshold of irrationality – an “outrageous defiance of logic”, a decision-maker “taking leave of its senses”, a determination which is truly “perverse”. Traditionally rationality challenges have been the last bastion of a claim, relied on when all other grounds have failed. But rationality is having something of a resurgence. Following the Law Society case, approved by the Supreme Court in Finch, we have seen challenges brought, and a number succeed, on the “second aspect” of rationality – because there was a “demonstrable flaw in the reasoning”, whether because of an absence of evidence to support a finding, an error of logic or mistake of fact. Nina Pindham and Robert Williams will review the recent case law on the subject; consider whether this trend means courts are more willing to intervene in public law decisions; and provide practical tips for those bringing and defending such challenges. We will also examine the emerging jurisprudence specific to environmental law public law claims more generally.
- 13:00 – Lunch
- 14:00 – Breakout Session 2
C. Interim Relief in Judicial Review – Sarah Salmon and Alexander Campbell
D. The Equality Act 2010 in Public Law Challenges – Kelvin Rutledge KC and Tara O’Leary
- 14:45 – Data Protection in Separate Claims
To what extent can law firms use insights from previous cases to support separate claims? That’s the question Richard Hanstock and Rowan Clapp will address in their data protection in public law session.
- 15:15 – Refreshments
15:30 – Policy/Guidance-based Challenges
In 2021 the Supreme Court adopted and restated the Gillick principles – in R(A) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2021] UKSC 37; [2021] 1 W.L.R. 3931 – when discussing the standards to be applied by courts when called upon to review the contents of policy documents or statements of practice issued by the Government. Andrew Lane and Jack Parker from the Chambers’ Public Law Team will consider both the development of such challenges and the factors that a claimant or public authority need to be especially conscious of in considering their challenge or drawing up such documents.
- 16:00 – Panel Discussion: A Look Ahead
Concluding conference, our illuminating panel discussion promises to be a thought-provoking journey into what the next year holds for public law, with our panel offering valuable insights and predictions. With Estelle Dehon KC, Kuljit Bhogal KC, Gerard Forlin KC and Josef Cannon KC.
- 16:30 – Drinks reception
*Timings, speakers and content are subject to change
- 9:00 – Registration and Refreshments
