Sebastian Bates
Sebastian has been a barrister at Temple Garden Chambers since October 2022. As a pupil in Chambers, he gained experience in high-value claims and claims involving allegations of fraud under the supervision of Lionel Stride and David R. White. He now very frequently appears in the County Court on behalf of both claimants and defendants in Stage 3 hearings, applications, and trials on the small claims and fast tracks, including in cases with a credit hire element. He contributes to the PI Brief Update monthly newsletter and will be the author of the chapter on Defences to Negligence in the forthcoming sixteenth edition of Binghams’ Personal Injury and Motor Claims Cases (2023).
Sebastian read law at the University of Oxford and later received an LLM from Yale Law School. Before coming to the Bar, he taught torts and contract at the University of Bristol Law School, served in the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, and clerked for Justice Froneman at the South African Constitutional Court; he also interned at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
Alongside his full-time practice, Sebastian teaches torts and Roman law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.