Chesca Lord is an experienced trial and appellate advocate, specialising in employment, discrimination, personal injury and clinical negligence law.

EMPLOYMENT AND DISCRIMINATION

Chesca regularly advises and acts in all areas of employment law, with a heavy focus on discrimination. She has particular experience in complex multi-day litigation and high-value remedies hearings. Her personal injury quantum expertise is an asset in claims involving medical evidence and requiring the drafting of comprehensive and persuasive Schedules or Counter-Schedules of Loss.

She recently acted (led by Caspar Glyn KC) in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in Shannon v Rampersad on the issue of whether sleep in care workers should receive the National Minimum Wage and is currently being led by Robin Allen KC in a group action on behalf of part-time judges.

Chesca has undertaken secondments to two leading employment law firms, broadening the scope of her practice and developing her pragmatic, client- focussed approach. At BDBF she advised a number of senior executives on negotiated exits and restricted covenant issues, and represented a technology company who brought a successful injunction against a departing employee. At Herbert Smith Freehills, Chesca developed her non-contentious employment expertise, including advising on corporate transactions, and internal grievances and disciplinaries.

Chesca regularly provides pro-bono advice and advocacy under the ELIPS and ELAAS (EAT) schemes, and is willing to act pro bono in appropriate cases.

PERSONAL INJURY AND CLINICAL NEGLIGENCE

Chesca specialises in contested quantum-only cases of the utmost severity. She is frequently brought in as junior counsel to draft complex multi-million pound Schedules of Loss and to help secure large urgent interim payments.

Since becoming a tenant at Cloisters, Chesca has been involved in the recovery of over £300 million for injured claimants. She has particular expertise in cerebral palsy arising from clinical negligence at birth, and catastrophic RTAs resulting in spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, amputations and/or visual impairment.

She has significant experience dealing with a wide range of controversial quantum issues including accommodation claims, claims for home hydrotherapy pools, motor homes and exoskeletons, complex career-long loss of earnings claims for young adults, cases involving difficult causation disputes and novel issues in fatal accidents claims.

Chesca's employment law expertise and knowledge is valuable to her PI/CN clients. She has gained extensive trial advocacy experience and is live to potential issues concerning disability discrimination and the employment of a care team.

Hardwicke Scholarship, Lincoln's Inn

Cholmeley Studentship, Lincoln's Inn

Buchanan Prize, Lincoln's Inn

City Law School/Falcon Chambers Land Law Essay Prize

Legal 500 2024: (Personal Injury) “Chesca is excellent for quantum PI quantification work. Her attention to detail and novel points for pushing the boundaries for valuing claims is brilliant.”

(Clinical Negligence) “Chesca has a brilliant eye for detail, especially where complex Schedules of Loss are concerned. Fantastic attention to minutiae of detail and an amazingly quick analytical brain.”

Chambers & Partners 2024: (Employment) “Chesca Lord is a skilled litigator who is deeply experienced in employment and equality law, including substantial discrimination claims. She has notable expertise in relation to part-time workers and sleep-in shifts.” “Chesca is very sharp, extremely clever and provides calmness and clarity in the most complicated cases. Clients appreciate her tenacity in tribunal and that she is commercially focused." “Chesca is extremely sharp and an impressive advocate while also very personable and excellent with our client." "She is very good, providing clarity in complexity."

(Personal Injury) “Chesca Lord is a respected junior who has significant expertise in complex quantum cases. She often acts for claimants in matters arising from motor accidents.” "Chesca has attention to detail. Her manner and sensitivity with clients is fantastic." "Chesca is very thorough. She has excellent knowledge of any quantum issues which allows her to draft very detailed schedules of loss."

(Clinical Negligence) “Chesca Lord is an experienced advocate who specialises in maximum severity quantum-only cases. She is regularly instructed to draft schedules of loss and secure large interim payments for amputations, spinal chord injuries and brain injuries.” "Chesca is very thorough and has a great eye for detail. Her work on complex schedules of loss is excellent." "She is a meticulous advocate, measured and exuding calm in the face of the fiercest opposition." "Chesca's eye for detail is outstanding. Her ability to quickly assimilate information, pick up discrepancies in reports and her speed of analysis has always amazed me."

Legal 500 2023: (Employment) “Calm, clever and strategic. She is great with clients, who find her presence in hearings reassuring but also appreciate her determination to fight for the best result at all times.”

(Personal Injury) “Very approachable and has a clear understanding of the relevant issues to the claim. Clients like her and she is without a doubt, a future personal injury star.”

(Clinical Negligence) “Chesca is very experienced in catastrophic work.”

Chambers & Partners 2023: "Chesca is a rising star and a delight to work with; she always gets to the heart of any issue with the minimum of faff." "She is able to think creatively and commercially on a technical level." "Chesca is very bright and knowledgeable, she has an intuitive commercial focus and works incredibly hard for clients."

Who's Who Legal 2022: "Chesca Lord is highly regarded for her extensive experience in the Labour space and is considered by sources as an expert on discrimination-related matters."

Chambers & Partners 2022: "She is a very personable barrister and she has excellent knowledge of the law but she is also pragmatic. She is organised, she completes tasks on time and she goes the extra mile." "She has a lovely manner, she works really hard and her advocacy is very attractive."

Legal 500 2022: (Clinical Negligence) "Chesca is a good strategic thinker, and always provides clear, detailed advice."

(Employment) "Thorough and thoughtful in approach – works well with leading counsel."

Chambers & Partners 2021: "Super bright, commercially focused in all her advice and a clever and tactically astute litigator. Also very easy to work with." "Produces super quality work."

Legal 500 2021: "Extremely clever, tactically astute and commercially focused. She is always calm and reassuring (particularly with witnesses), while at the same time fiercely competitive - our go-to counsel for all employment law work."

Who's Who Legal 2017: Ranked as an Expert in Labour, Employment & Benefits.

Appointed to EHRC Panel of Preferred Counsel 2019-2023

Member of ELA, ELBA, ILS, DLA, Advocate (formerly Bar Bro Bono Unit), PIBA, APIL and AvMA

Contributing author to ‘Lewis and Buchan: Clinical Negligence – A Practical Guide' (8th Ed, Bloomsbury Professional 2019) and From Counsel.

Chesca regularly provides training on a wide range of topics, in particular on personal injury issues for employment lawyers, and quantum issues in PI/CN. Please contact the clerks if you wish to arrange bespoke training.

Oxford University, BA, History

City Law School, GDL and BPTC (Outstanding)

Employment and Discrimination

• Shannon v Rampersad [2018] EWCA Civ 1641 & Supreme Court [2021] UKSC 8 – whether sleep in workers should receive NMW while asleep, led by Caspar Glyn QC

• Pye v Queen Mary University of London [2017] EWCA Civ 1820 – in which Lord Justice Bean praised Chesca's “high quality” advocacy

• Juric v Look Ahead Care Support and Housing: UKEAT/0091/18/BA (2018) – successfully resisted appeal in whistleblowing case

• Advised a leading commodity broking firm about crossover employment/PI liabilities in context of multi-million pound whistleblowing claim, led externally by James Laddie QC (2017)

• Zerolight v Wolff [2016] EWHC 487 (QB): while seconded to BDBF, successful application for interim injunctive relief to enforce restrictive covenants against a former employee

• Secured a wasted costs order against a firm who held themselves out as acting for named discrimination respondents without authorisation (2015)

• Advised a financial services senior executive on crossover employment/PI claims; settled for a seven figure sum (2015)

• Perry's Motor Sales Ltd v Evans UKEAT/0275/14/BA: successfully resisted an employer's appeal against a finding of constructive unfair dismissal and failure to make reasonable adjustments.

• Acted for a financial sector client in a month-long race discrimination and unfair dismissal trial, led externally by David Craig (now KC) (2014)

• Led by Caspar Glyn KC to act for the Defendant in the then-largest ever single employment and personal injury claim brought in the UK; a stress claim pleaded in excess of £30 million (2013)

Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence

• Led by Simon Taylor KC or William Latimer Sayer KC in over a dozen cases of cerebral palsy arising from clinical negligence at birth or as an infant, including obtaining a settlement with a capitalised value of over £34 million in 2017, and six cases settling for between £11 million and £18 million each

• AAA v CCC (2019) – severe brain injury sustained by a 1-year old in an RTA, settled at RTM for £15.4 million, led externally by Gerard Martin KC

• ABC v Lewisham and Greenwich Trust - Obtained an interim payment of over £1.2 million to enable a property purchase at a contested hearing in 2014, led by Patricia Hitchcock KC. Case later settled in 2016, led by William Latimer Sayer KC, for c. £11.2 million capitalised value

• Obtained an urgent interim payment of £950,000 to fund intensive brain injury rehabilitation required due to early discharge because of Covid-19 (settled before application hearing, led by William Latimer Sayer KC)

• Brown v Morley LTLPI 14/3/2014: above knee amputation sustained in motorcycle RTA. Settled for then-highest recorded AKA figure (c. £4.5 million capitalised) after 10 days of contested remedies trial, led by William Latimer-Sayer

• Currently acting for a double-arm amputee, led by William Latimer Sayer KC, Chesca has been heavily involved in securing various interim payments

• Led by William Latimer Sayer KC in over 10 catastrophic spinal cord injury cases sustained at various levels, a number of whom have become proficient exoskeleton users, one of whom also lost his sight

• Led by Patricia Hitchcock KC in a contested liability tetraplegia case, settled at JSM

• Settled a fatal accidents claim for £975,000 at JSM - unled

• Achieved a number of six-figure settlements unled, including for sexual harassment at work, and motorcycle RTA injuries

• Involved in a number of cases unled involving complex neurological/neuropsychiatric causation issues following mild TBI

• Assisted in recovering one of the highest known Criminal Injuries Compensation Awards (capitalised at over £5 million) as Lisa Sullivan's pupil, led by Simon Taylor KC