Practice overview
Sara Ibrahim is recognised as a leading junior for professional negligence and employment and is noted to have ‘exemplary’ legal knowledge as well as being ‘switched on to the needs of the end client’ (Legal 500). She has a wide ranging practice and is able to advise on complex discrimination claims as well as employee competition issues and director disputes. Sara is on the panel of counsel for the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
Sara was shortlisted as the Professional Negligence Junior of the Year by The Legal 500 (2022).
She is sought after to provide assistance in matters with an international element, including other common law jurisdictions such as the Caribbean and Gibraltar. Sara appeared recently in the Privy Council on the matter of Gordon v Havener (Antigua and Barbuda) [2021] UKPC 26 which clarified the law of proprietary estoppel.
Sara has a keen interest in emerging areas of law that intersect with her practice areas such as Artificial Intelligence, which she has written about here.
She is a founder member of Bar Standards Board Race Equality Task Force and is a trainer for the Bar Council’s introduction to race course.

Areas of expertise
- Commercial dispute resolution
- Commercial litigation
Commercial litigation
Sara has a growing commercial dispute practice with an emphasis on claims arising from senior executive disputes. She has particular experience in dealing with breach of restrictive covenants including questions of enforceability, use of confidential information and advising on appropriate relief.
Her commercial cases often involve allegations of professional negligence or fraud.
Recent examples include:
- Acting for a respondent in a claim for interim relief where there were allegations of extensive breaches of restrictive covenants, including misuse of confidential information and orchestrating a team move.
- Acting for a claimant seeking declaratory relief where his former employer provided a mortgage with an all monies clause and was alleging fraud.
- Acting for a senior executive who faced allegations of breach of Director’s duties.
- Acting for a company where a former employee had redistributed company funds to his personal account.
- Acting for a claimant in a claim for interim relief where an employee had made copies of confidential information and intended to work for a competitor.
- Acting for a claimant in a claim for interim relief in a partnership dispute.
- Advising on a breach of contract claim for failure to pay a bonus.
- Employment & executive disputes
Employment & executive disputes
Sara regularly provides representation in cases where there is a crossover between employment and commercial disputes, including those with employee competition. She has experience in seeking and resisting injunctive relief in claims for breach of restrictive covenants.
She acts for employers and employees in a wide range of disputes in the employment tribunals and the EAT. In 2019, she was reappointed to the panel of counsel for the Commission of Equality and Human Rights.
Sara regularly acts in complex discrimination claims including on the grounds of disability, sex, race, pregnancy, age and where there are allegations of harassment and victimisation.
Her recent experience includes:
- Acting for an employee in a complex disability discrimination claim and a linked shareholder dispute alongside counterclaims for breach of directors’ duties.
- Advising on the enforceability of a confidentiality provision in a settlement agreement in Gibraltar.
- Advising an employer based in the Bahamas on a range of employment matters arising from the pandemic, including enforceability of employment rights following a company-wide restructure and vaccination policy following return to work.
- Acting for a company in a claim for unfair dismissal where there were complex allegations of fraud against the employee.
- Advising an employee on her claim for discrimination arising from the menopause (including on the grounds of sex and disability).
- Acting for an employee who was alleged to have breached restrictive covenant provisions in his employment contract and in the sale agreement for his former business in the High Court.
- Acted for an employee on a disability discrimination claim against his employer and the pension trustees under the non-discrimination rule.
- Acting for an employee who had relocated for work on a claim of race discrimination, where jurisdiction of the employment tribunal was challenged.
- Acted alongside an American firm, where the employee had a claim of sexual discrimination and worked for a UK parent company based in the US.
- Acted in a TUPE claim for a company where there was a breach of the regulation 11 obligation to provide ELI.
- Civil fraud
Civil fraud
Sara is often instructed in claims in other areas of her practice including professional negligence and employment where she is required to deal with fraudulent claims and associated issues of dishonesty.
Her recent work has included:
- Acting for a claimant seeking declaratory relief where his former employer provided a mortgage with an all monies clause and was alleging fraud worth in excess of £4 million.
- Advised a charity where a company sought to enforce hire purchase agreements worth in excess of £100,000 where contracts had been fraudulently signed or entered into in reliance on fraudulent misrepresentations.
- Acting in a claim for professional negligence where there are arguments over whether the underlying claim could have been honestly pursued due to allegations of dishonesty and/or fraud on the part of the claimant.
- Acting for a company where a former employee had redistributed company funds to his personal account causing solvency issues for the business.
Sara regularly advises in applications for or resisting injunctive relief where there are allegations individuals have acted in breach of their Directors’ duties, misused confidential information or have breached their contractual obligations.
- Commercial litigation
- Professional liability
- Construction professionals
Construction professionals
Sara advises on claims against construction experts including surveyors and architects. These claims often sit alongside claims of shared liability with legal professionals or broader contractual disputes.
Her recent experience includes:
- A claim against a surveyor who failed to identify structural issues on a home buyer’s surveyor where there are linked allegations that the conveyancing solicitor failed to carry out adequate pre-exchange checks.
- A claim against an architect acting as a contract administrator where they had failed to ensure their design was followed resulting in serious structural defects to the property.
- A claim against an architect who failed to file notices in time, meaning the claimant was no longer eligible for an exemption.
- A claim against an architect who had failed to withhold payment to builders under the contract where the work was defective.
- Legal professionals
Legal professionals
Sara regularly advises in professional negligence claims involving solicitors and barristers. Her work often draws on her employment and commercial dispute expertise.
Her recent work includes claims against:
- A solicitor for settling an equal pay and disability discrimination claim at an undervalue. The claim required understanding of how a competently structured equal pay claim and disability discrimination claim should have been conducted.
- A solicitor for failing to issue a professional negligence claim in time.
- A solicitor for misconduct of a personal injury claim including failure to obtain expert evidence in time.
- A solicitor and barrister where a consumer protection claim was issued against the wrong parties and out of time.
- A conveyancing solicitor who failed to make adequate pre-exchange checks for building regulation and planning compliance.
- A solicitor where a counterclaim for professional negligence was advanced in a claim for recovery of fees.
- Construction professionals
- Education
Education
Sara acts in a range of matters with a focus on academies, including special educational needs and discrimination claims.
She advises academies on governance issues and has provided advice on the legal responsibilities of an academy and relevance of the Department for Education and Charities Commission guidance. She is well placed to assist in matters that require knowledge of the Equality Act or with a commercial dispute element.
She has also advised students in disciplinary matters and discrimination claims.
CSR & pro bono
- Founder member of the Bar Standards Board ‘Race Equality Task Force’ and trainer for the Bar Council ‘Introduction to Race’ course.
- Former member of the Bar Representation Committee (Lincoln’s Inn) and Co-chair of sub-committee on social mobility.
- Advocacy tutor for Lincoln’s Inn.
Directory recommendations
Sara is recommended by The Legal 500 for professional negligence and employment:
“Sara is extremely thorough, thoughtful and friendly. She has innate empathy for the predicament of a client and the skill to transfer that into well-honed legal argument in their favour.” (The Legal 500, Professional Negligence)
“Sara’s legal knowledge is exemplary. Her work is thorough and well-researched. She is a respected and steady pair of hands who is well liked by clients.” (The Legal 500, 2023)
“Sara’s legal knowledge is exemplary. Her work is thorough and well-researched. She is a respected and steady pair of hands who is well liked by clients.”
“Extremely intelligent, switched on to the needs of the end client, completes the work diligently, manages expectations at all levels, and is able to explain complex matters to laypeople coherently.”
Professional associations
- ELBA
- ELA
- COMBAR
- PNBA
- LCLCBA
- ELAS
Publications
- On the menopause in the workplace
- On the ECJ’s equal treatment ruling about wearing the hijab in the workplace
- Employment law and AI regulation
- Brexit and European judgments
- New Law Journal on sexual abuse in schools – available here
- 2020 Counsel magazine on the Bar and anti-racism – available here
- AI and the Regulatory landscape – what does this mean for professionals? – available here
Qualifications
BA History, University of Cambridge