John Hatton
Principal Associate
Experience
John is a Principal Associate in the Birmingham employment team and was noted as a “Key Lawyer” in Legal 500 UK 2022. He was also shortlisted for the Future Face of Legal Award 2021 by the young professional arm of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce.
John has represented clients in the healthcare sector exclusively since 2014 and represents clients across a broad range of contentious and non-contentious employment issues. John is particularly interested in litigation and contentious work, regularly managing a caseload of Tribunal litigation involving wrongful and unfair dismissals, discrimination, whistleblowing and wages claims. Prior to qualifying into the employment team, John obtained three years’ experience in defendant clinical negligence practice and therefore has a lot of experience in representing healthcare clients throughout the civil litigation process. He can therefore offer cost-effective advice and representation in the County Courts as well as Employment Tribunals.
Expertise
John has specific expertise and a passion for working with the healthcare sector. Having undertaken his training contract for the in-house legal department of NHS Wales, John is able to provide sector specific employment law advice with a strong contextual understanding of how that advice engages with the modern day NHS and sits alongside other legal practice areas such as clinical negligence, procurement and clinical advisory.
Notable Projects
- Advising an NHS Trust on whether the condition of “Electromagnetic Sensitivity” would meet the definition of disability in s.6 Equality Act 2010 and successfully challenging that this condition amounted to a disability during the material time of the claim.
- Advising an Integrated Care System (ICS) on the creation of a Reservist workforce to be deployed across the ICS during periods of high demand; and drafting the agreements and fixed-term contracts to support the project.
- Successfully defending injunctive proceedings brought by a Consultant Oncologist who was seeking to lift his exclusion from the Trust. The application was made during an ongoing MHPS process which was investigating concerns that he had inappropriately billed NHS patients for their treatment and successfully obtaining an award for a significant portion of the Trust’s legal fees.
- Securing a 90% reduction based on Polkey and the Claimant’s contributory fault during a remedy process for an unfair dismissal case and successfully negotiating a costs settlement on behalf of the Trust for a value in excess of the damages awarded by the Tribunal.
- Successfully defending a complex whistleblowing detriment, automatic and ordinary unfair dismissal claim from a litigant in person, which resulted in dismissal of all claims against the Trust and a successful costs application for a portion of the Trust’s legal costs of defending the claims.
- Obtaining a strike out against a litigant in person in respect of a claim relating to constructive unfair dismissal and disability discrimination, and successfully defending the Claimant’s relief from sanction application to reinstate the claim.
CSR activity
John participates in CSR projects with the Birmingham Office and is a volunteer for Central England Law Centre providing initial pro bono legal advice on employment law issues to members of the public.
Admitted as a Solicitor
- September 2017
Memberships
- Employment Lawyers Association
Qualifications
- BA (Hons) Law – University of Sheffield 2011
- PGDip Bar Professional Training Course – Northumbria University 2012
- PGDip Legal Practice Course – University of South Wales 2017