Akua Reindorf

Cloisters

Having started her career in publishing, Akua Reindorf came to law relatively late – but her impact has been huge in the high-profile arena of employment law. Having built a notable practice largely for claimants, she has a slew of eye-catching cases on her CV, including Puthenveettil v Alexander & George, which found that the exemption of domestic workers from national minimum wage amounted to sex discrimination, and successfully representing cleaners working at Topshop after they were sacked for protesting about their pay. In recent years Reindorf has developed her investigatory practice with a growing number of cases involving universities, including Cambridge and Warwick. The university work that hit the headlines in 2021 was a report commissioned by the University of Essex. Reindorf’s report found that the university had breached the rights of two professors to freedom of expression because of preconceptions about their views on gender identity and trans issues.

Reindorf’s advisory work will grow over the next few years as free speech on campus becomes a crucial governance issue for the higher education sector. This year Reindorf will maintain her court work, both as an advocate on a number of post-Forstater cases and as a part-time employment judge. And as if to underline Reindorf’s star status, right at the end of 2021 came the news that she had been appointed to the board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.