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Karen Minto

Call 2001
Telephone 020 7831 0222 | Email [email protected]

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Karen Minto

Call 2001
Telephone 020 7831 0222 | Email [email protected]

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Karen is an employment law expert, with a particular interest in discrimination law. She practised for ten years at Ely Place Chambers in London, specialising mainly in employment and commercial law, and has experience in personal injury, consumer law, property and chancery matters. After a career break, Karen returned to the Bar in 2024 and is rebuilding a robust employment practice.

Originally from North Wales, Karen studied English at King’s College, Cambridge. Karen begun her working life at the Disability Policy Division of the DfEE, the department responsible for the implementation of the Disability Rights Commission and the then Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Her interest in discrimination law was what led her to the Bar and her specialist practice in employment law. She is also a qualified teacher, and her time teaching in secondary schools has given her a distinctive insight into disputes within the education sector. This diverse background enables Karen to bring a multifaceted perspective to her legal practice, particularly in cases involving education and discrimination law.

Employment Law

Karen possesses extensive expertise in employment law and is adept at managing complex cases. She conducts cases for both Claimants and Respondents with an emphasis on discrimination law. She has experience in Whistleblowing and TUPE and is particularly interested in protected disclosures relating to discrimination.

Recently, Karen successfully represented the Respondent in a complex Disability Discrimination case involving multi-billion pound project management within the public sector in Michael Carruthers v Transport for London and E Norman.

Karen successfully represented the Claimant in his case against British Airways for unfair dismissal after the employer unreasonably failed to investigate a gross misconduct claim and made an unreasonable, prejudged decision to dismiss, which unreasonableness continued to the appeal and second appeal stage. Dalkiran v British Airways

Karen is adept at dealing with highly complex cases involving litigants in person, taking a robust and pragmatic approach. In such a case raised by a university academic, Karen acted for Swansea University in a number of strike out applications which were successful, providing clarity and efficiency to a difficult case. Halikowski-Smith v Swansea University.

Karen was also successful recently in representing the Claimant in a disability and pregnancy discrimination case in which her client, a care home worker, was put on statutory sick pay indefinitely even though fit for work with adjustments.

In 2010, before her career break, she successfully appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal on the issue of harassment on the grounds of race and the burden of proof on behalf of the Metropolitan Police: Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis v Osinaike (2010) UKEAT/0373/09.

She also successfully ran a complex claim against American Airlines in which the Claimant was found to have been indirectly discriminated against on the grounds of sex because of timetabling at an airline check-in desk.

Karen has many years of experience in training on all aspects of employment and discrimination law.