Practice Summary

Ashley Underwood has two principal areas of work, chancery/commercial and public law.

In the chancery/commercial side of his practice he has a wide range of clients, from property developers through insolvency practitioners to major finance companies. He is principally involved in litigation, but has a substantial advisory and drafting practice. He is responsible for the standard term contracts in a variety of asset financing fields.

His public law work is mainly for central and local government, but includes other public authorities such as arms length management organisations. He has acted for the local authorities in many of the major housing cases, from LB Brent v Awua to Price v Leeds. In addition he has very considerable experience of local government work and has been in the leading cases on consultation. He is joint editor of Hill & Redman Public Sector Tenancies.

He has acted for the Secretary of State for the Home Department in a large number of important human rights cases. In addition he is on the Attorney Generals list of Special Advocates, and has the highest security clearance. He has been appointed Leading Counsel to the Robert Hamill Inquiry, which is a public inquiry forming part of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Ashley Underwood has very extensive experience of appellate work, having conducted more than a dozen House of Lords appeals and innumerable appeals in the Court of Appeal.

Ashley is recommended by Chambers and Partners 2009 as "extremely clear and technically brilliant and Legal 500 2007 directories.

Recent important cases include in the:-

House of Lords Officer L (Article 2 ECHR and anonymity of witnesses); Birmingham v Walker (restrospectivity of succession to tenancies); Price v Leeds (Article 8 and possession proceedings); Regina (Aweys and Others) v Bimingham City Council (Definition of homelessness and the scope of the duty to provide staging post accommodation)

Court of Appeal Alker v Collingwood Housing Association (Defective Premises Act and duty to repair); Doherty v Birmingham City Council (Article 8 ECHR and possession proceedings); Nadarajah and Abdi v Secretary of State for the Home Department (legitimate expectation);LB Islington v University College London Hospital NHS Trust(duty of care on tortfeasor towards local authority);

First instance LB Tower Hamlets v Chavda(civil claim in conspiracy to defraud); Waterford Property Development v Balvan Properties (liability for indemnity payments under contract of sale of land); Reeds Solicitors v Norwich Union (panel solicitors agreement with insurer)