Sam Proffitt | Manchester, Leeds & Birmingham

Profile

• Sam was called to the Bar in October 2020, and joined Kings Chambers as tenant in March 2021 having cross-qualified as a Solicitor Advocate.

  Prior to joining Kings, Sam spent almost 9 years in the Employment team at DAC Beachcroft LLP, qualifying as a Solicitor in February 2016. There, he specialised in employment tribunal litigation, conducting hundreds of claims on behalf of major respondent clients, including undertaking advocacy at complex and high value multi-day hearings. He obtained Higher Rights of Audience (Civil) in March 2018, and joins Chambers as an experienced practitioner, having been granted a full exemption from all elements of the Bar Transfer Test and Pupillage. He was also noted to be a “key lawyer” within the Tier 1 Employment team in the Legal 500 UK 2021 rankings.

  Sam has a particular interest and experience dealing with discrimination and whistleblowing claims, including in a regulated environment with large public and private health sector organisations. He also brings real commercial insight to his practice, having spent a year on secondment as in-house counsel at a FTSE 100 client.

  Sam also had substantial exposure to appellate litigation during his time as a Solicitor, and can draw on his experience working with a number of leading employment silks across several ground-breaking cases in the Employment Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal.

  Recent highlights include:

  • Successfully defending a national charity in a 4-day whistleblowing detriment and constructive dismissal claim;
  • Securing strike out of a long-running disability discrimination claim following persistent breach of Orders for a FTSE 250 client;
  • Persuading the tribunal that a commission scheme had been wrongly applied over a period of 20 years - no unlawful deduction from wages by withholding payments;
  • Successfully defending a race discrimination claim brought by a Nurse applicant for a major private healthcare provider client;
  • Persuading the tribunal that a claimant had been an employee throughout their tenure despite a self-employed services agreement (applying the recent Supreme Court Uber case on worker status); and
  • Successfully defending a number of respondent clients in claims alleging underpayments arising from COVID-19 related disputes including furlough and temporary contractual variations.
  
   

Year of Call: 2020

Areas of Expertise

Qualifications

BA (Hons) Sociology – University of York