Lucy Kennedy

Call 2000
Solicitor 1995-2000

BA (Hons)

Practice: Crime and Fraud

'Recommended in Crime' - The Legal 500 (2010)

‘... undertakes fantastically thorough preparation’ – The Legal 500 (2009)

Summary

Committed and highly competent, Lucy Kennedy is commended in ‘Legal 500’ 2009-2010 as a barrister who “undertakes fantastically thorough preparation”. As someone who fights her corner in court, she has been described by one judge as “hard as nails”.

Having been at the Bar for ten years, which followed five years practising as a solicitor, Lucy has accrued a wealth of experience and expertise.

In crime, she prosecutes and defends – very often in legally and evidentially complex cases. She is instructed as sole and as junior counsel in, for example: fraud; money laundering; kidnap; blackmail; firearms; drugs; armed robbery.

She practised as a solicitor, in civil law, with a Central London law firm, (specialising in employment law; industrial injury; medical negligence), and was the legal correspondent for the UCATT (Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians) journal.

Given her background in civil law, she is equally at home in regulatory work and disciplinary work as she is in crime. She turned down Equity Partnership to come to the Bar. In addition to having become an effective ‘no-nonsense’ advocate, Lucy has established a reputation for producing extremely powerful and persuasive written legal submissions: she has, more than once, persuaded Crown Court judges to completely alter their analysis and understanding of the law on critical and potentially terminating matters, without which the case would have been lost.
The vast majority of the cases she has prosecuted have been in ‘multi-handed’ cases, necessitating a firm grasp of the issues: legal and factual; intricate and decisive. She has proved herself several-fold in achieving such a high level of ability.

As someone with initiative, she takes an active role as counsel and seeks to share the teams’ various burdens of responsibility, both inside and outside court. She is very much a ‘team player’, irrespective of which side of the court room her team is positioned.

Having appeared in a number of high profile cases, (three examples being: R v Denic (prosecuting the Graff Jeweller’s Pink Panther Gang multi-million pound armed robbery); R v Mahtani (prosecuting the largest credit card fraud); R v Hammond (defending the ‘Catch Me If You Can’ confidence trickster)), Lucy recently spent the last several months working, (along with a small team of other selected barristers from QEB Hollis Whiteman, ‘headed’ by William Boyce QC), on the largest-ever Crown Prosecution Service proceedings, incorporating the trials of numerous Defendants (approximately 40) in a multi-conspiracy; multi-million pound money laundering and drug trafficking case.

Additional Information

Committee member of the Public Access Bar Association

Committee member of Central London Bar Mess

Bar representative for Southwark Crown Court Users Group

Member of Association of Regulatory & Disciplinary Lawyers

Registered with the Bar Council – Public Access Directory

Member of the Criminal Bar Association

Former legal correspondent for UCATT(Construction Workers' Union)

Co-founder of HUSH (registered charity for e.coli victims)

Education

BA (Hons) - First Class - University of York.
Post Graduate Diploma in Law - Nottingham Law School Ltd.
Legal Practice Course - Nottingham Law School Ltd.