Helen has been a member of chambers since 2002. She practises across the range of chambers' work, but particularly in the fields of professional negligence, general commercial, insurance and property-related work.

Helen has experience of a very broad variety of claims against solicitors, with recent examples including lost litigation, employment and matrimonial matters in addition to property and chancery and fraud work. Her solicitors’ negligence work has often involved further claims against other parties; for example, Helen has recently been involved in a number of claims arising from allegedly fraudulent property transactions (involving both solicitors and surveyors/valuers) and also has experience of claims brought by solicitors against parties such as other professionals, regulators and banks. 

In the past couple of years, Helen has acted in several pieces of large multi-party or managed litigation (arising from both the collapse of various litigation funding schemes and from large-scale fraud). Helen was instructed by the largest group of defendant solicitors both in the TAG and the CLE litigation. In this context, Helen recently appeared in the important post-Sephton limitation case of Axa Insurance Ltd v. Akther & Darby Solicitors (in which judgment was handed down by the Court of Appeal in November 2009).  

Helen has been instructed in a number of claims against financial professionals, including accountants and IFAs. Such claims have encompassed issues such as negligent tax and investment advice. She has also handled a broad range of disputes against surveyors and valuers.

Helen also has experience of advising in relation to the liability of expert witnesses. An article that she wrote on the subject (with Sue Carr QC) was featured in “Professional  Negligence” in 2007 and was recently cited in Jones v Kaney [2009] EWHC 61 (QB).

Helen’s practice involves an increasing number of commercial insurance disputes (encompassing a variety of claims by and against insurers and insurance agents). She is currently involved in a large commercial court insurance claim relating to services provided by insurance agents. She has also recently been instructed in what is thought to be the largest claim arising out of the Buncefield explosion.   

Prior to joining chambers, Helen read English Literature at New College, Oxford, where she was Galsworthy scholar and obtained a first class degree. She also spent a year in France, at the University of Aix-Marseille.  Helen then studied law at City University, where she gained a distinction in the CPE exams and won the essay prize for tort law. During her Bar School year, Helen was Astbury Scholar of the Middle Temple and won the Inn's Helena Normanton QC Prize for her performance in the Bar Vocational Course. In the same year, Helen obtained an MA in Administrative Law from City University and worked for a period in a set of chambers in St Vincent & the Grenadines. In 2004 Helen was awarded a Pegasus scholarship to spend three months working in the insurance and professional liability department at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Toronto, Canada. 

Helen has also been consistently involved in pro bono work. At present, she is a school governor and a member of the founding committee of PILARS (which is an organisation providing pro-bono advice in bankruptcy matters). In October 2009, Helen was nominated for the Bar Pro Bono Award for her work with PILARS.