About Victoria
I build a strong rapport with my clients to secure the best outcome for their child/young person. This holistic approach alongside my experience enables me to successfully strongly challenge and advocate for them to ensure access to suitable education, particularly those with the most challenging and complex needs.
Victoria qualified as a solicitor in 2011 and joined Russell-Cooke in 2023. She specialises in assisting children and young people with a range of additional needs and disabilities, and supports their families to ensure that the correct support, therapy provision and educational placement is received. This includes securing Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), assisting with appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Tribunal, Equality Act claim and negotiating with schools and colleges, and local authorities. Victoria’s clients range in age from birth up to 25 years old.
Victoria also advises on other education law matters including school admissions, exclusions and transport.
With a particular focus on acting for those with the most complex needs, Victoria often works with clients who have suffered serious injuries as a result of medical negligence or an accident. She receives referrals from fellow solicitors, case managers, independent experts, counsel, and charities. She is regularly invited to present on special educational needs legal issues to professional audiences and for charities, parent groups, and independent schools for their parents and staff.
Victoria is also a board trustee at Beyond Autism, an autism charity that also runs an early years intervention service, two outstanding specialist schools, and Post-19 provisions.
NE and DE v Southampton City Council (SEN): [2019] UKUT 388 (AAC) – successful Upper Tribunal challenge regarding independent specialist placement for post-19.
She has very good emotional intelligence and rarely loses because she really understands which points can be won.
Experience
- Securing a split placement package of education for a girl with Rett Syndrome and complex needs. This included part time school attendance, and part time attendance at home, including a bespoke therapeutic package
- Negotiating to obtain agreement from a local authority for residential special school places for twin young men with extremely complex autism and associated social care needs
- Obtaining an EHCP and appropriate nursery school placement for a disabled baby
- Securing the continuation of a young person’s EHCP in their special college placement until the course ended, the term after their twenty-fifth birthday
- Ensuring appropriate transport was put in place for a child with complex special educational needs and an EHCP
Victoria is particularly adept at representing clients in tribunals concerning school placement and the content of Education, Health and Care Plans.
Recognitions
- Listed as a Star Associate by Chambers and Partners, and the Legal 500 describes her as ‘exceptional’
Education
- Studied Law at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
- Completed LPC at the College of Law, Chester
