Biography
Stephen is a barrister specialising in environmental and energy law. He is recognised as the UK’s leading environmental lawyer. He began writing on, and teaching, environmental law in the 1980s, when a lecturer in the Department of Land Economy in Cambridge. From 1990-99 he practised environmental law as a solicitor, with the London firm of Simmons & Simmons, where he built what was regarded as the premier environmental practice in the UK.
Since 1999 he has practised as a barrister, and since 2009 as Queen’s Counsel. He is a member of 39 Essex Chambers, of which he is a former Joint Head.
He has been instructed in many of the leading cases in environmental law over the last 20 years, in the Court of Appeal, House of Lords, Supreme Court and Court of Justice of the EU.
He was a founding member of the UK Environmental Law Association, and is a former Chair.
He has a very strong record of writing, going back to the 1980s, in terms of text books and journal articles in journals such as the Cambridge Law Journal, the Journal of Environmental Law and the Journal of World Energy Law.
His major textbooks are:
Contaminated Land (3rd edition, 2019)
Nuclear Law (3rd edition in preparation)
Environmental Assessment Law (3rd edition in preparation).
He has a particularly strong reputation in the nuclear industry and advises on major nuclear projects, acting for governments, corporations and insurers.
He also has a long record of public service, as a specialist adviser to Committees in both Houses of Parliament and as a Council member of English Nature. Currently he is a Board Member of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.
He has also done a considerable amount of pro bono work for environmental and conservation organisations such as Birdlife International, ClientEarth, the Environmental Law Foundation, Planet Earth, RSPB, and WWF.
