Naomi Cunningham has specialised in discrimination law, mainly but not exclusively in the employment context, throughout her career.
In recent years, Naomi has developed a particular interest in the interaction between the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act, gender reassignment discrimination, the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act, and the public sector equality duty and the Human Rights Act 1998. She has given evidence twice on related matters to the Women and Equalities Select Committee in Westminster and once to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood.
Naomi’s public law work in the area includes Fair Play For Women’s successful judicial review of ONS guidance on the sex question in the 2021 Census, a challenge to the lawfulness of the EHRC’s Code of Practice in AEA v EHRC, FOIA appeals involving information held by the Judicial College and the Crown Prosecution Service, and advice to government and public or higher education bodies engaging education law, police law and human rights.
Naomi was named The Times Lawyer of the Week in May 2024 for her success in Meade v Westminster City Council and Social Work England, in which she secured exemplary damages against the regulator, which had “allowed its processes to be subverted to punish and suppress the Claimant’s lawful political speech”. The following week, the Edinburgh Employment Tribunal handed down its judgment in Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, finding that Naomi’s client had been subjected to a “heresy hunt” orchestrated by the Centre’s CEO. In 2025, she led Charlotte Elves for the claimant in Peggie v NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton, in which a nurse was suspended and subjected to a disciplinary process for objecting to the use of a women’s changing room by a male colleague; in O’Neill and Wayne v University College Union, a case about protests preventing the screening of the film Adult Human Female; and in Morrison v Belfast Film Festival, in which an employee of the Film Festival complained that she had been constructively dismissed after speaking at a Let Women Speak event in Belfast. She is leading William Young in Newman v Metropolitan Police in an appeal to the EAT from the dismissal of a police officer’s complaint arising from a Trans Day of Visibility event held at New Scotland Yard. In 2026 she has appeared in two regulatory/disciplinary hearings, for psychotherapist Anne Woodhouse and former police officer Rachel Fletcher respectively; and for the intervener in Tempest v Rural Payments Agency and Defra, SEEN intervening, in which a trans-identifying man is complaining that the existence of a “gender-critical” staff network in his workplace harasses him.
Naomi’s popular and practical guide to employment tribunal proceedings, Employment Tribunal Claims: tactics and precedents (2nd-4th editions co-authored by Michael Reed) is still widely valued by everyone in the employment tribunal system from litigants in person to judges. She blogs occasionally on the law at www.legalfeminist.org.uk. Her post “Ten easy steps to the perfect hearing bundle” has been described as “life-changing” by some who should get out more.
Naomi is an experienced and sought after barrister, instructed by claimants and respondents in individual and multiparty claims, across a broad range of employment law issues.
Asda Stores Ltd v Brierley and others [2021] UKSC 10
Birmingham City Council v Akhtar & ors EWCA Civ 585
St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School v Blundell [2011] EWCA Civ 427
New evidence on appeal; application of rule in Ladd v Marshall.
Comfort v Department for Constitutional Affairs (2006) (ET); (2005) (EAT); [2004] EWCA Civ 349 (CA)
Constructive dismissal case remitted by the CA for re-hearing after the original ET failed to deal with allegation of perjury by a senior civil servant giving evidence for the Respondent. The second appeal to the EAT concerned disclosure of the Respondent’s notes of evidence from the previous hearing.
Gdynia America Shipping Lines (London) Ltd v Chelminski [2004] ICR 1523, CA
Time for appealing an employment tribunal decision.
Addison & Addison v Ashby [2003] ICR 667
Whether child workers entitled under the Working Time Regulations to paid annual leave.
Naomi Cunningham is regulated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) and holds a current practising certificate. If you are not satisfied with the service provided, please click here.
To find out more, contact Nick Levett on +44 (0)20 7427 4908 for a confidential discussion.
