Lifetime Achievement Award for HJA’s Patrick Allen

Patrick Allen, former Senior Partner at Hodge Jones & Allen (HJA), has tonight been honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the LexisNexis Awards 2026, recognising his outstanding contribution to the legal profession over a distinguished 48-year career.

Patrick, who retired from the firm last September, was presented with the accolade at tonight’s ceremony in central London in acknowledgement of his enduring impact on legal practice.

The award was presented to him by the editor of LexisNexis weekly litigation title, New Law Journal, Jan Miller. She said: “During a lifetime of legal practice, Patrick has represented clients who have suffered injustice at the hands of the state and powerful corporations. His name, and that of his firm, have become synonymous with the fight against might. The result is that his career reads like a half-century of social history. It gives me immense pleasure to present this award to a tireless campaigner for social justice.”

Patrick attended the awards ceremony with former colleagues, family and friends. He said: “I am honoured to be recognised by the award judges and thank Jan for her nomination. I only ever wanted to be a progressive lawyer correcting miscarriages of justice and changing the law where necessary. I think I have achieved that and take great pride in the development of Hodge Jones & Allen, which after almost 50 years in existence, still holds to its founding ethos of fighting for justice.”

Patrick qualified as a solicitor in 1977 but eight months before that had already made plans to create a new law firm with Henry Hodge and Peter Jones. Together they opened Hodge Jones & Allen on 5 September 1977, from offices above a men’s outfitters on Camden High Street. Patrick was managing partner from day one and took on the senior partner role following Henry’s retirement in 1998.

For nearly 40 years Patrick specialised in complex personal injury and multi-party cases, the first of which was the Kings Cross fire in 1987. He went on to lead the HJA team that managed the Gulf War illness claims for UK veterans and the New Cross fire inquest. He also managed the MMR and Sheep Dip multiparty actions and played a lead role in the Marchioness litigation.

From 2003 to 2005 Patrick acted for several of the women who had been incarcerated as slave labour workers in the so-called Magdalene laundries and who have since been awarded compensation by the Irish government. He was also instructed by the Bridgewater Four in their miscarriage of justice claim against the Home Office.

Most recently, his firm led the successful 10-year-long campaign on behalf of the mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who was the first person to have air pollution recorded as a cause of death on her death certificate and reached an undisclosed settlement with the government over her untimely death.

Other seminal work undertaken by the firm has included representing claimants at public inquiries into the Grenfell Tower fire, undercover policing, the Post Office scandal and the Lampard inquiry into mental health deaths in Essex.

Today HJA is renowned for being at the forefront of some of the UK’s most important legal cases, particularly in multiparty actions, medical negligence, housing, civil liberties, family, human rights and criminal and protest law. The firm employs over 250 people from its North Gower Street offices and is one of the largest ‘personal law’ providers with 10 departments and an annual turnover of £25m.

Since Patrick’s retirement, the firm has been run by a management team led by Chun Wong, Head of Dispute Resolution and Julie Hardy, Director of Finance, alongside equity partners Jayesh Kunwardia, Head of Housing, Raj Chada, Head of Criminal Defence, and Leticia Williams, Head of Personal Injury.