Phoebe Mather

Phoebe is a member of Kings Chambers Employment team, having successfully completed her pupillage under the supervision of members Ben Williams and Helen Gardiner.

She acts for individuals, charities, businesses and public authorities (including NHS Trusts and regulators) across the range of preliminary hearings, in judicial mediations and at final hearings. Phoebe welcomes instructions in employment and discrimination related civil and commercial cases.

Phoebe is also a member of the Licensing team, with experience in regulatory law. She acts for both licence-holders and local authorities before licensing committees and in the appellate courts, particularly in taxi licensing matters.

Phoebe’s cases include:

• Successfully defending a respondent company in a multi-day discrimination and victimisation claim, despite the response having been struck out for unreasonable conduct of the case
• Successfully defending a respondent care home in a multi-day whistleblowing claim
• Successfully representing a respondent company in a preliminary hearing considering jurisdiction with all claims dismissed (addressing both the reasonably practicable and just and equitable tests)
• Successfully representing a claimant in a multi-day redundancy unfair dismissal case
• Successfully applied at a reconsideration hearing to have a named respondent removed from a liability judgment dating back two years 
• Successfully arguing for a stay on tribunal proceedings, pending a criminal trial
• Representing a respondent company in a complex ground rules hearing
• Representing a public body at a judicial mediation with the claimant agreeing to settle for less than 1% of the claim value
• Advising on a novel Employment Appeal Tribunal matter involving alleged procedural impropriety
• Successfully representing a respondent NHS Trust in a strike out application on the basis the claim had no reasonable prospect of success
• Representing a business in an application for a new alcohol premises licence before a licensing sub-committee, successfully obtaining the licence with full trading hours sought, despite having received representations from local councillors and residents
• Advising on a complex trading standards prosecution involving retrospective company directorship changes
• Successfully defending a transport company in a County Court gender re-assignment service discrimination claim

Before joining Chambers, Phoebe was Legal Officer at the UK whistleblowing charity Protect, where she designed and led whistleblowing best practice training and consultancy for a range of not-for-profit, private and public sector organisations including national and international banks, Government departments and regulators. She also advised hundreds of individual whistleblowers on both strategy and legal issues. Phoebe co-authored Protect’s Environmental Whistleblowing Toolkit which was ‘Highly Commended’ at the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2024.

In the summer of 2024, Phoebe was an intern with the Democratic Freedoms team at the Human Rights Law Centre in Sydney, Australia.