Andrew Sperling
Andrew specialises in Judicial Review, Parole Board advocacy and human rights. He has extensive practical experience of the criminal justice and penal systems and significant experience of conducting difficult, high profile judicial review challenges, test cases and appeals for more than a quarter of a century.
He was a founder member of the Association of Prison Lawyers (APL) which was established in 2008 by a small number of practitioners and has grown to a membership of almost 400 members. He was instrumental in developing the organisation in size and profile. He was Chairman of APL between 2011 and 2013. He was a Finalist in the national Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards in 2013.
In April 2014 he was commissioned to work on stakeholder engagement and governance projects for the Parole Board of England & Wales.
In 2017 he set up his own practice, SL5 Legal, of which he is the Managing Director. SL5 now operates as part of the Tuckers group.
He has provided training for the Parole Board, the National Autistic Society, the Bar Council and members of a new Conditional Release Board in the Cayman Islands. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities and Offending Behaviour and a facilitator for the Law Society's Advocacy for the Vulnerable programme.
He has successfully represented clients in the High Court, the Court of Appeal (both Civil and Criminal Divisions), the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights.
He has been interviewed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Radio 4 and LBC and has had articles published in The Guardian, The New Statesman and Byline Times.