Lauren Suding undertakes work in employment and family law, including High Court matters and financial remedy matters in the family courts and the social security tribunals. Further details of her work in each of these areas can be found below.

Lauren is also an Adjunct Professor in the London programme of Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law, where she judges and teaches the International Moot Court. Outside of her law practice, she serves as a trustee for the Holborn Community Association and on several committees at The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.

Lauren previously enjoyed a twelve-year career in financial services, reaching Executive Director level at firms including JP Morgan, Standard & Poors and Oppenheimer. Lauren’s work in financial services included managing employment matters for multi-national commercial firms where she gained experience in directors’ duties, employers’ liability, pensions, and disciplinary and grievance procedures.

Lauren has also done work for the Free Representation Unit, The Access to Justice Foundation, Allen & Overy, and TV Edwards. She was a mentor on the inaugural planning and public law mentoring scheme for underrepresented groups at the Bar. The initiative was covered in an article in The Times: Mentoring scheme places are hot property.

She is a qualified Public Access barrister and is able to accept instructions from members of the public within her specialist areas.

If you would like more information about Lauren’s practice, please contact her clerks or call +44 (0)20 7405 6114.

Employment

Lauren regularly appears in the employment tribunal, accepting instructions on behalf of both employees and employers. Lauren has been instructed in cases involving whistle-blowing; unfair and wrongful dismissal; constructive dismissal; discrimination on the grounds of age, race and disability; failures to make reasonable adjustments; failures to pay minimum wage; construction of contracts including obligations to pay bonuses; and unlawful deduction of wages. She also has experience in restraints of trade and compromise agreements.

Lauren has been commended in her employment work for her attention to detail, expertise in calculations and Excel, and an extraordinary ability to remain calm and focused in times of pressure.

Prior to coming to the Bar, Lauren’s work in financial services included managing employment matters for multi-national commercial firms where she gained experience in directors’ duties, TUPE, employers’ liability, disciplinary and grievance procedures, and pensions. She has also been an active Employment Tribunal volunteer at the Free Representation Unit since 2013.

Family

Lauren specialises in complex children’s rights cases involving forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and foreign, international, and trans-national issues. She regularly advises and acts in cases involving medical and psychiatric evidence, sexual abuse, and drugs and alcohol misuse issues.

She frequently handles cases involving authorisations of deprivations of liberty, recovery orders, location orders, secure accommodation applications, emergency placements that are unregulated and unregistered with Ofsted, and matters that invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court.

Lauren’s advice and advocacy is sensitive to the emotional backdrop of family cases whilst remaining clear and effective. She regularly appears in cases involving parental responsibility, parentage, child arrangements orders, prohibited steps orders, and specific issue orders, and she accepts instructions at all stages from emergency ex parte applications to fully contested hearings.

Lauren always applies patience and diplomacy when managing sensitive issues, in both private and public law proceedings, including intractable contact disputes and local authority applications to reduce or suspend contact.

She acts for all parties in Care Proceedings including local authorities, guardians, parents, separately-represented and Gillick-competent children, police, and intervenors. She regularly receives instructions on a legally-aided basis.

Lauren has appeared at various stages of proceedings including applications for emergency protection orders, contested interim care order hearings, fact-finding hearings (including as junior counsel in a multi-week Events hearing), and adoption hearings.

Education

  • BSc (1st Hons equivalent): Stanford University, California
  • PPP degree curriculum: Magdalen College, University of Oxford
  • GDL, LLB and BPTC: BPP Law School
  • Lord Lowry (major) Scholarship: Middle Temple (2014)
  • Harmsworth Entrance Exhibition: Middle Temple (2014)
  • Commended National Merit and Advanced Placement Scholar

Professional memberships

  • Employment Lawyers Association
  • FLBA (Family Law Bar Association)
  • ALC (Association of Lawyers for Children)
  • Advocate (formerly Bar Pro Bono Unit)

Privacy notice

Lauren’s Privacy notice can be found here