Garden Court Chambers is delighted to announce Elena Papamichael is now a member of the Garden Court Chambers Criminal Defence Team.
Elena is a passionate and thorough advocate. With expertise in representing young adults and vulnerable defendants in the Crown Court, she works tirelessly to achieve the best outcomes for her clients.
Elena is formidable in cross-examination and technical legal points. For example, by mounting a successful application to exclude a confession from evidence at trial. At trial for an assault on a police officer, the Crown was forced to offer no evidence following Elena’s cross-examination of the officer who was the alleged victim, resulting in an acquittal for her client.
Social justice and racial equality are at the heart of Elena’s work and she has written several articles on topics such as youth justice, drill music and police powers and her comment piece on the prosecution of peaceful protest was published in The Times. She has been quoted in The Guardian in relation to the use of Criminal Behaviour Orders and their implications for our civil liberties.
Elena spoke at the Garden Court Chambers webinar 'Challenging the admissibility of drill music in criminal trials' in September 2020, which was part of a series of online events on 'Drill music, gangs and prosecutions – challenging racist stereotypes in the criminal justice system'.
Prior to joining Chambers, Elena worked as a solicitor at Hodge Jones and Allen in the Specialist Youth Team, Protest Law Team, General Crime Team and as a Higher Court Advocate at GT Stewart Solicitors & Advocates.
Whilst studying for her law qualifications, Elena volunteered for the School Exclusions Project, representing young people who had been excluded from school. She also interned for Release, a drugs and Human Rights Charity and Runnymede Trust, a race equality think tank. Elena was a mentor at a youth project for several years and has run workshops for young people in schools, youth clubs and for the youth offending service about stop and search and the law and rights. She was previously a director of 4front, a social enterprise that seeks to tackle the root causes of youth violence.
Click here to view Elena Papamichael's profile.
Click here to view Legal Brief's coverage of Elena's move to Garden Court.
