Call: 2008
BVI: 2009
Dan’s practice is focused on commercial litigation and arbitration of all varieties, and sports law. He also has expertise in costs law. He is considered a leading junior by both Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500, which describe him as “one to watch” and a “notable up-and-comer”.
Dan joined 4 New Square in 2008 after training and practising as a solicitor-advocate at City firm Herbert Smith LLP. He has also practised as a litigator in the British Virgin Islands for leading offshore firm Conyers Dill & Pearman. Dan is one of only a handful of individuals at the junior Bar with this breadth of litigation experience, and consequently he typically operates well above his year of call.
Dan's commercial case-load is broad: he enjoys acting on all kinds of business disputes, including relating to commercial contracts and trade, civil fraud, financial services, insolvency, professional liability and insurance/reinsurance. His past experience and training in the City, including stints in the front and back offices of two investment banks, makes him particularly suitable for claims with a corporate or financial angle, and he has been instructed in a number of high value claims of this kind, both as sole advocate and as junior to a QC. Further, his international background - a fluent French speaker, Dan was educated in the French, British and American systems and has worked in London and Paris as well as the Caribbean - means he is an ideal choice for disputes with a cross-border or overseas element. He has expertise in all aspects of private international law and has been involved in a number of high-value international arbitrations.
On the sports law front, Dan has quickly developed a reputation as one of the leading barristers in this arena. A former international standard rowing cox and now a member of the executive body of British Rowing, he has first-hand experience of the kinds of legal issues that can arise in sport. He has acted for governing bodies, athletes, clubs and other entities on contentious and non-contentious matters and his expertise has been recognised by his appointment to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics Sports Advocacy Service. He is also on Sport Resolutions’ Panel of Arbitrators, giving him valuable judicial perspective in this field, and is a committee member of the British Association for Sport and Law.
As for costs, Dan is a specialist in cases raising novel or difficult legal issues. He has appeared numerous times led and unled in the Senior Courts Costs Office and on appeals therefrom, and brings a thorough understanding of the law, detailed research and creative thinking to every instruction. He assisted Lord Justice Jackson with his review of costs in civil litigation and was instructed (with Nicholas Bacon QC) on the biggest costs claim in English legal history, Motto v Trafigura, a dispute described by The Lawyer as one of the top 20 cases of the year across all fields.
Before commencing practice Dan gained prize-winning first class degrees from the University of Edinburgh (incorporating a year at the University of California, Berkeley) and the University of Oxford. He also taught trusts law at the University of Southampton.
More recently, he has been published by the Journal of International Banking and Financial Law, the Journal of the New York State Bar Association and the New Law Journal.
Education
Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle (London), University of Edinburgh, University of California (Berkeley), University of Oxford (Jesus College), BPP Law School
Languages
French (fluent), Spanish (working knowledge)