Remembering Nick Hanning

IT is with deep sadness that we announce the death of our friend and colleague Nick Hanning. Nick had lived for several years with cancer until his untimely death on New Year’s Eve 2024. Many occupational health professionals will have known Nick through the OH law courses and seminars he lectured on for The At Work Partnership and his articles for Occupational Health at Work.

Legal executive Nick was educated at Malvern College but left before taking A-levels. While doing various day jobs, including a brief spell as a roofer, he studied law at evening classes, gaining the highest mark in the country in his legal executive exams. He began practising as a legal executive in 1988, becoming a fellow of the then Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) in 1990. In 2000, he was one of a small group of practitioners to qualify as the first Legal Executive Advocates, and in 2009 was among the first legal executives to become a partner in a solicitors’ practice, following provisions made under the Legal Services Act 2007.

Nick became a council member of ILEX in 2005 and president in 2012–13, shortly after the organisation was granted its Royal Charter, becoming the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX). He had previously chaired the ILEX Pro Bono Forum and the CILEX Pro Bono Trust. Nick had always championed CILEX, not only because it offers a non-graduate route to legal practice, but also because of the diversity of its 17,000-strong membership.

In 2019, Nick was appointed to the Civil Justice Council (CJC), a non-departmental public body established by the Civil Procedures Act 1997 to advise the Secretary of State, the Judiciary and the Civil Procedure Rule Committee on the effectiveness of aspects of the justice system, ensuring its fairness and accessibility. He was a member of the CJC Working Party on Access to Justice for Litigants in Person and the Litigant in Person Judicial Engagement Group. He served on the Bach Commission on Access to Justice, which reported to the House of Lords in 2017. He was also a supporter of international human rights, and during his CILEX presidential year was part of the UK lawyers’ delegation to Colombia fighting to improve access to justice in that country. Nick wrote a series of blogs about his experiences.

In his professional practice, Nick joined the law firm Farnfield & Nicholls in 1988, leaving in 2000 to co-found the legal firm Reynolds Williams (later RWPS LLP). A change in the law (above) enabled Nick to become a partner at RWPS. Nick was also a partner at Dutton Gregory Solicitors, which had merged with RWPS in 2014, and later an independent consultant at Dutton Gregory, Anthony Gold and DG Legal.

Key cases

Nick was known especially for his expertise in work-related harassment and psychiatric injury. He acted for the claimant, William Majrowski, in the seminal case of Majrowski v Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust. In Majrowski, the House of Lords held that employers could be vicariously liable for acts of  harassment by their employees, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, which had hitherto been seen principally as anti-stalking legislation rather than applying to the workplace. The case, in which Mr Majrowski alleged that he had been bullied and harassed by his line manager, opened the way for employees to sue their employers for stress and anxiety caused by harassment if their employer failed to protect them from such behaviour at work, with claims actionable for up to six years after the event.

Nick also acted for the claimant in the high-profile case of Michalak v Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. In this case, an employment tribunal awarded £4,454,202 to a consultant doctor, Eva Michalak, for sex and race discrimination, and for unfair dismissal, following a prolonged and concerted campaign to oust her from an NHS trust by senior staff, which left her psychiatrically ill and unable to work. Taking inflation into account, the award remains the highest ever by an employment tribunal.

Nick had worked with The At Work Partnership since 2008. He was a specialist legal trainer at our conferences and events, an important contributor to the Occupational Health at Work journal and the former OH Law Online service, and author of a chapter in our book Discrimination law and occupational health practice. Particularly memorable are his brilliant lectures on the Practical OH Law Certificate course, and his dedication to helping OH professionals understand employment tribunal law and procedure. The course director, Professor Diana Kloss, has expressed her admiration for Nick’s legal expertise, her appreciation for his contribution to the sixth edition of her book Occupational Health Law6, and for his support and friendship on the many courses they  delivered together.

Breaking new ground

In November 2024, just six weeks before his death, Nick was the first member of CILEX to be appointed as a Recorder, which had only become possible in May 2023 when Parliament amended the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (TCE Act), governing eligibility for judicial appointments. He had previously been appointed as a deputy district judge and a judge in the employment tribunal – positions that before a 2008 amendment of the TCE Act had not been attainable by legal executives (the first ILEX deputy district judge was appointed in 2010).

When Nick became a Recorder, the Courts and Tribunal Judiciary service noted that his appointment ‘breaks yet further new ground as the first ever appointment of a legal executive to the Circuit Bench level’. As reported by the service, Nick said of his new role: ‘When I began my legal career, the legal executive route was all that was available to me to progress in a structured way combining formal learning with on-the-job practical experience. My appointments to previous judicial roles, and now Recorder, are evidence of the excellent work that is being done to increase diversity by ensuring that appointment is not about background and qualifications but about demonstrating the required competencies however they have been acquired.’

Nick will be remembered by us all at The At Work Partnership for his legal ability and lecturing skills, his warmth and his great sense of humour. He will be greatly missed. Nick is survived by his partner Martha, and by his son Sam, sister Rachel and father Jack (6.55-61).

Written by John Ballard, editor of Occupational Health [at Work]