What the team does
The Public Law and Regulation team is a close-knit team of dedicated specialists, led by John Cooper – one of the UK's leading lawyers in this area (with over twenty years' experience). We work across a broad range of regulated sectors including energy, water, healthcare, education, life sciences and transport; working for central government, independent regulators, corporate clients, trade associations and charities. All of the team are exposed to a range of work and different sectors, but over time are often able to develop their expertise in a particular sector (working with the relevant firm-wide sector team).
As well as advising clients on complex questions around public law obligations and how different regulatory regimes apply, we represent clients in high-profile judicial review challenges against government decisions and on other statutory appeals (sometimes acting for the claimant and sometimes defending the public body involved). Examples of our larger projects include advising on the development of wholly new regulatory regimes, such as advising the UK Government on the regulation of smart meters and advising part of the Dubai Government on the design and drafting of new primary legislation in the transport sector.
A significant part of the work we do is performing a key legal support role for a number of UK Government regulators – working to support them in protecting consumers in the markets they oversee. A number of team members have previously worked in-house in government regulators before joining Gowling WLG and can bring that insight into the work they do.