Team Single

Harry Adamson

  • Year of Call: 2012
  • Degree: MA in Philosophy (Cantab): Double First (first or second in year in all three years); M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Philosophy (Cantab)
  • Languages: French, German, Spanish (some knowledge)

Personal Experience

Harry is highly rated in heavy commercial, chancery and financial services litigation, and is frequently instructed in some of the most significant cases in those areas before the Courts. He is also a member of the Attorney General’s panel of counsel (B panel), and has a busy practice acting for both claimants and defendants in high profile public/regulatory cases. His practice often operates in the overlap between commercial and public law: for example, in cases involving international corruption; fraud in the banking or financial services sector; or regulatory enforcement (including for or against the FCA, London Stock Exchange, the CMA and the Gambling Commission).

Harry has been recognised as a star junior for some time. He was selected in 2017 as one of Legal Week’s 2017 twelve ‘Stars at the Bar’, having been chosen as a result of interviews with 200 solicitors and barristers working in commercial litigation. Recent comments include:

  • Chambers UK, 2025: “He is extraordinarily user-friendly. Clients and judges love him because he’s so charming and smart. He is very smart and very good on his feet: subtle, smart and incisive. He’s a joy to watch.”
  • Legal 500, 2025: “Harry is a pleasure to work with in all respects – efficient, responsive, detailed and practical advice.”
  • Chambers UK, 2024: “Harry strikes the perfect balance: he is startlingly bright but also incredibly user-friendly. He is a real asset in a case.”
  • Legal 500, 2024: “Harry is completely brilliant – a formidable strategist, who grasps every detail and is an absolute delight to work with.“
  • Chambers UK, 2023: “Harry is ferociously intelligent and has an excellent manner with clients and the court.“
  • Chambers UK, 2022: “exceptionally bright, extremely skilful, very calm and a highly persuasive advocate”; “an incredibly clever barrister who is very user-friendly”; and “he’s lovely to work with, smart, responsive and very commercial“.
  • Legal 500, 2022: “a brilliant mind”; “a delightful manner with clients (even when they are very difficult) and an exceptional intellect“.
  • Chambers UK, 2021: “fiendishly bright, a delight to work with, personable and someone to recommend for any sort of commercial dispute”.
  • Chambers UK, 2020: “clever, thoughtful, considerate and user-friendly, he’s a pleasure to deal with and is someone with a phenomenal brain”.

Before coming to the Bar, Harry taught philosophy and logic at Cambridge and Harvard Universities, in areas including ethics and human rights, political theory, formal logic, set theory and probability theory.

 

Experience

  • Commercial
  • Public & Regulatory
  • Financial Services & Banking
  • Civil Fraud, Asset Recovery & Injunctive Relief

Education

MA in Philosophy (Cantab): Double First (first or second in year in all three years); M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Philosophy (Cantab); Kennedy Scholarship (non-degree Special Student, and Teaching Fellow) to Harvard University; Graduate Diploma in Law (City): Distinction; Bar Vocational Course (City): Outstanding, 2nd in year.

Skills

Sport Law
Arbitration Law
EU & Competition Law
Public & Regulatory Law
Professional Discipline

Achievements

Education

MA in Philosophy (Cantab): Double First (first or second in year in all three years); M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Philosophy (Cantab); Kennedy Scholarship (non-degree Special Student, and Teaching Fellow) to Harvard University; Graduate Diploma in Law (City): Distinction; Bar Vocational Course (City): Outstanding, 2nd in year.

Prizes & Scholarships

  • Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard
  • Inner Temple Advocacy Prize, for best performances on the Pupil Advocacy training course.
  • Stephen Chapman Scholarship, Inner Temple.
  • Scarman Scholarship for exam performance, City University.
  • Benefactors Scholarship, St. John’s College, Cambridge, offering full M.Phil. and Ph.D. funding.
  • Arts and Humanities Research Council Award, also offering full M.Phil. and Ph.D. funding.
  • Bachelor’s Scholarship, Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Other Information

While studying for his graduate degrees Harry taught part-time at Cambridge and Harvard Universities. He specialised in ethics (including human rights), but also taught formal logic, set theory and probability, political philosophy, and history of philosophy. Unusually for Cambridge University, he was asked to teach in the year immediately following his undergraduate philosophy degree. He broadened to political and legal theory at Harvard University, leading a series of seminars as a Teaching Fellow on a course entitled “Equality and Democracy”.

Harry has also founded a charitable group that specialises in teaching philosophy to people who have suffered social isolation or mental distress.