Hot 100 2022: Sarah Hannaford QC

Date: 17 January 2022

We would like to congratulate Sarah Hannaford QC for her inclusion in The Lawyer‘s “Hot 100″ for 2022. The annual list highlights a diverse mix of truly excellent lawyers who have played a particularly significant role in the legal profession during the last twelve months.

The Lawyer describe Sarah as “an intellectual heavyweight with strong leadership skills” and “a silk who wins even the most challenging cases”. Her inclusion in the list is of no surprise following leading her team to a once-in-a-decade victory for HS2 in March 2021, and her pivotal role on the Procurement Transformation Advisory Panel. The year ahead is also very busy for Sarah who has a “string of high-profile cases to contend with”, including acting for The Met Office, the UK Government-backed weather agency, in a procurement challenge recently featured in The Lawyer’s “Top 20 Cases of 2022”.

The full Hot 100 write up for Sarah can be found below.

Sarah Hannaford QC – “Hot 100” 2022

When it comes to public procurement disputes, Keating Chambers’ Sarah Hannaford QC leads the market. After securing a major win for HS2 in defence of a £100m procurement claim pursued by Bechtel last March, Hannaford will be back in court for HS2 again later this year when it will face a massive procurement challenge from Siemens Mobility. But that is some way off yet; ahead of that there is a string of high-profile cases to contend with.

This includes an expedited trial in January for the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs in a case being brought by Vodafone. Then, in May, she will appear for the Met Office in a dispute listed as one to watch in The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases, with Atos IT Services challenging the procurement process used to award the weather and climate change supercomputer contract.  These are just a few highlights for Hannaford, whose practice also spans construction litigation.

An intellectual heavyweight with strong leadership skills, Hannaford is a silk who wins even the most challenging cases.