Email : ra@cloisters.com

Robin Allen, Queen's Counsel, is Head of Cloisters, Barristers' Chambers. He has worked in the field of equality law, non-discrimination and human rights since 1974. He works with all the United Kingdom Equality Commissions and is a special legal adviser to the UK Disability Rights Commission and a consultant to Age Concern and Age Europe.

In December 1998, he gave the keynote address at the first European Commission international conference on Article 13 EC, at which the European Commission announced its proposals for the new Race and Framework Directives. Since 2002 he has lectured on Anti-Discrimination Law across Europe to judges and jurists from all the Member and Accession States of the European Union in relation to the new Directives.

He has worked on discrimination cases on all the protected grounds. Some recent examples of his work include, working as an Amicus Curiae in the leading transsexuals ECHR case Goodwin v. UK, appearing before the ECJ in R. v. Secretary of State for Employment ex parte Seymour Smith, challenging mandatory retirement ages for British Airways pilots and cabin crew, advising the Commission for Racial Equality in respect of their Formal Investigation into racism in the Prison Service and acting for the Disability Rights Commission on their leading work on reasonable adjustments (accommodation) in the key House of Lords case of Archibald v. Fife Council which set out the positive obligations to disabled persons in employment.