You & Your Family
You & Your Property
You & Your Business
Shaun is an Associate Solicitor in the Social Welfare Department, specialising in community care, Court of Protection and public law work.
He was named as a “Star Associate” in the 2026 edition of Chambers and Partners in the field of Administrative and Public Law, and as an “Associate to Watch” in Court of Protection work. He is named as a key lawyer in both of these areas in the Legal 500, and has been described as being “fantastically diligent and he has the incredible ability to grapple with the detail and see the bigger picture of public law cases”.
Shaun won the “Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year” award in 2025 in the Public Law category.
Shaun acts in complex Court of Protection welfare cases, and is regularly instructed by the Official Solicitor, as well as by professional advocates. Shaun has been appointed as an Accredited Legal Representative by the Law Society, a qualification which allows him to act for incapacitous clients directly in the Court of Protection without a litigation friend.
Within his public law work, Shaun represents clients with a wide variety of Community Care needs, including under the Care Act 2014, Children Act 1989 and Mental Health Act 1983. As part of his caseload, Shaun represents children in need and care leavers who require a range of support and disabled adults whose needs have not been met by the public bodies obliged to do so. He takes a particular interest in acting for care leavers who are often left without the necessary support to allow for a successful transition to adulthood, and cases which may require recourse in both the Court of Protection and Administrative Court; his experience in both courts makes him well suited to advise in such matters.
Shaun also specialises in challenging local authorities who have failed to provide for the welfare needs of vulnerable migrant families and individuals who are restricted from accessing mainstream public funds.
Shaun is a qualified Legal Aid supervisor in the field of community care.
Notable cases
- ZB (1) & DB (2) v London Borough of Croydon [2023] EWHC 489 (Admin). In this case Shaun secured residential educational placements for two children with complex disabilities, as well as damages of £10,000 each to compensate them for breaches of their human right to education. Such awards are unusual and rarely reported.
- DL (by her litigation friend the Official Solicitor v London Borough of Enfield [2019] EWCOP B1. Shaun acted for DL and successfully resisted an application by the local authority to dismiss the proceedings; had the application been successful, it would have made it significantly harder for individuals deprived of their liberty in care settings to be able to access their rights to challenge that deprivation in the Court of Protection.
- Securing a move for a disabled adult who lacked capacity to make his own decision to his preferred accommodation, a bungalow purchased for him by his family. The local authority had previously refused to fund the individual’s care in the bungalow until Shaun prepared pre-action correspondence challenging this decision.
- Obtaining damages, and declarations from a local authority that it had breached Shaun’s client’s human rights by unlawfully issuing care proceedings and providing inadequate care to the client, a child with significant disabilities including deafblindness.
- Successfully challenging a local authority’s decision that a child whose single mother was unable to claim benefits due to her immigration status was not a child in need; Shaun’s correspondence resulted in the family being provided with financial support and accommodation
- Persuading a local authority to depart from its usual policy and fund a care leaver’s application for British citizenship, which he considered vital to his sense of identity and security.
- Achieving a significant damages settlement in respect of a client who had been unlawfully deprived of his liberty when a child in his home as a result of a disproportionate care plan put in place for him by his local authority, who should have applied to the Court for authorisation at the time it formulated the care plan. The Court found that the client’s Article 5 and Article 8 rights as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights had been breached, and ordered the local authority to prepare lawful community care assessments and care plans for the client.
- Persuading a local authority to use its discretion to recognise a young woman as a care leaver and thus provide her with the extensive support available for this cohort, despite the fact that the individual did not meet the technical criteria to qualify as a care leaver, a fact that Shaun had successfully argued was down to the local authority’s own failings
- Ensuring a migrant family with No Recourse to Public Funds was able to return to the borough in which they had settled, which was vital to the mental stability and welfare of an 8 year old autistic child whose presentation had deteriorated following the family’s local authority moving the family to a completely different area, which meant the child had been unable to attend his school. After Shaun became involved, the family was returned to the original borough and the child was able to return to his school
- Successfully challenging a local authority’s decision that an unaccompanied asylum seeking child, who had been recognised by the authority as a child in need, should live in the authority’s local area. The child had thus far been living in a different area, where he had been placed by the authority, and where he was settled, and he was therefore distressed at the prospect of being moved out of the area that he considered his home. Shaun was able to secure confirmation from the local authority that it would instead ensure the child could remain, and be supported, in the area in which he had been living and in which he had built up a strong community network
Recommendations
