Melanie Carter

Partner, Head of Public, Regulatory and Information Law

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Melanie is a Partner and Head of Public & Regulatory for the firm. She also leads on Information Law. She is a longstanding specialist in these fields and top ranked as a leading individual in the legal directories.

She has over 30 years’ experience acting for clients ranging across the public & regulatory sector, charities, social enterprises, institutes, Royal Charter bodies, businesses and individuals. Her work spans contentious work – she is a specialist in Public Inquiries and judicial review – and also advisory work including drafting of legislation and Codes of Conduct. She often works at Board level, advising on corporate governance, reputation and strategy. She is an adjudicator working internationally, sits as a legal assessor in professional regulatory cases and is a Tribunal Judge.

Melanie is ranked as a Band 1 lawyer for Administrative & Public Law and as a Leading Individual for Public Inquiries in Chambers. She is a Leading Individual for Administrative & Public law including local government in Legal 500 in which she is also in the Hall of Fame for professional discipline.

Her work concentrates around the powers and duties of public bodies, but reaches out those who have to engage with or challenge public bodies. She is a former Government and in house lawyer at a regulator, and understands the policy and resource constraints inherent in their operations. She has worked with numerous national charities on their strategic litigation or when they have been under the spotlight of regulation themselves.

She is a trusted adviser, often operating at Board level and as external General Counsel. She has personally devised legal frameworks and drafted the statutory legislation or constitutional documents (e.g. primary and secondary legislation, Royal Charters, Codes of Conduct, disciplinary and complaints policies and procedures) for their implementation.

Cambridge University
Bar exams
Solicitors’ exams

Mountaineering, playing the piano.

Inquiries and investigations working for or having worked on the Covid Inquiry, the Independent Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry, the Grenfell Inquiry, the Brook House Inquiry and the Infected Blood Inquiry. I have been appointed individually as an independent investigator in local government and NHS and am an independent adjudicator.
Central Government, having worked previously on the Crown Commercial framework for Central Government and in-house at the Home Office and Treasury Solicitors including expertise in Parliamentary procedure and legislative drafting.
Local government and NHS audit, as the national leader in legal advice in the private sector in this area.
Judicial review for numerous regulators.
Professional regulation, having for many years been a legal assessor and adviser in public law to a range of professional regulatory bodies.
Charities regulation including by the Charity Commission (compliance and statutory inquiries) and the Fundraising Regulator and broad governance issues.
Freedom of Information, having acted on many requests, First Tier and Upper Tier Tribunal cases. I have been a Tribunal Judge in the First Tier since 2005.
Data protection including extensive advice on subject access requests, data transfers and sharing.