Julie Norris

Julie is a partner in the Regulatory Team. She specialises in advising in the health, professional services, legal and financial fields, advising professionals, businesses and regulators on regulatory compliance, investigations, adjudication, enforcement and prosecutions.  

Clients come to Julie for advice on regulatory issues that affect their ability to practice or run their organisations, as well as those regulatory issues that may affect their reputation or professional standing.

Julie acts for professionals across the financial, legal, health and professional service sectors. Recent clients include accountants, insolvency practitioners, solicitors, barristers, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, counsellors, doctors, pharmacists, opticians, licensed conveyancers, surveyors, pharmacists, loss adjusters and veterinary surgeons. She has particular expertise in regulatory investigations with a criminal angle.  Julie’s early career at the criminal bar and “…mastery of criminal law and procedure and its application to regulatory work...” (Chambers UK) means that Julie is particularly well placed to advise clients in regulatory matters such as Information Commissioner Investigations and illegal practice prosecutions initiated by regulators.

Julie often advises professionals at the outset of investigations when the responses to the regulator may have particularly serious implications; Julie has an impressive track record for halting investigations pre-hearing.  Julie is particularly well known for achieving better than expected outcomes for clients and challenging regimes and decisions that are legally unsound or unfair.  Recently, Julie was involved in a successful challenge to a voluntary regulator’s disciplinary scheme (the British Psychoanalytic Council), resulting in her client winning their case and the regulator consulting on a new set of disciplinary rules.

Julie is a recognised expert in her field and regularly speaks at industry events and writes in journals and other publications. 

Recent work

• No further action taken by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in respect of an allegation against a chartered surveyor that they had caused the death of a person due to a deficient inspection/report 
• Advising a chartered loss adjuster in proceedings before the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII)
• Advising an Insolvency Practitioner in disciplinary proceedings before the ICAEW
• Representing a psychotherapist in an Inquest in which it was alleged that the treatment provided was ineffective 
• Representing an accountant in Financial Reporting Council (FRC) proceedings relating to accounting irregularities said to have misled auditors
• Advising ACCA and ICAEW members on notification requirements
• No further action taken by the Case Examiners of the General Medical Council (GMC) against a doctor who had inaccurately reported qualifications in a CV
• Successful representation of a teacher before the Teaching Agency facing allegations of racially motivated unprofessional conduct arising out of the Trojan Horse scandal
• No further action taken by the Case Examiners of the General Medical Council (GMC) against a psychiatrist facing allegations surrounding the inadequacy of a clinical report and expert evidence given
• Representing firms and individuals involved in Information Commissioner Investigations into alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998
• Acting for a psychoanalyst in successfully defending allegations of professional misconduct brought by the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)
• Successfully persuading the Case Examiners of the General Medical Council (GMC) that the practise of medicine does not include certain broadcasting activities that a doctor was engaged in
• Advising a counselling practice on the legality of accepting referral fees
• Advising a charity on the lawful operation of its medical practices in the UK
• Advising a dental practice on GDC compliance vis-à-vis the employment of qualified overseas non-GDC registered professionals
• Advising a private equity administration firm on the regulatory requirements for employees to hold practicing certificates

What clients and directories have said

"She's very good, she's hard-working and she makes very good tactical judgements."

Chambers UK, A Clients Guide to the UK Legal Profession,  2019

She has a mastery of the detail and is a great tactician.

Chambers UK, A Clients Guide to the UK Legal Profession,  2018

"She is exceptional

 Chambers UK, A Clients Guide to the UK Legal Profession,  2018

She is praised for her "incisive, clear and intelligent" approach to cases

Legal 500 UK 2015

“Defence work is overseen by the ‘articulate, fluid and highly skilled' Julie Norris.”

Legal 500, 2014

'She has a mastery of criminal law and procedure and its application to regulatory work – her cross-examinations are truly brilliant’.“

Chambers UK, A Clients Guide to the UK Legal Profession,  2014

Publications and articles

• Getting disability inclusion on the agenda; being diversish is not enough…, September 2019
• Innocent until proven guilty: how universities must handle sexual allegations, University Business, September 2019
• Combatting workplace sexual harassment in accounting firms, Accountancy Age, October 2018
• GMC rethink required on anonymous complaints, PULSE, January 2016
• Professional regulatory hearings—2015 in review, Lexis PSL, December 2015
• Let's not scapegoat the GMC, PULSE, November 2015
• Dos and Don’ts of dealing with a patient complaint, Holistic Therapist Magazine, August 2015
• Fitness to practice—all change for the GMC regime? Lexis PSL Corporate Crime, April 2015
• The importance of wording in fitness to practice allegations, Lexis, PSL, Personal Injury, November 2014
• 'Close the loophole on therapists and counsellors', HSJ, November 2014
• Co-author of The Law of Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions - A practical guide, (February 2011, Oxford  University Press). Described as “an authoritative compendium of current law and practice”, it is the only text to provide comprehensive coverage of the new regulatory enforcement regime, dealing with the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 and the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007
• Contributing editor to Kingsley Napley: Serious Fraud, Investigation and Trial, Fourth edition [2008]

Professional societies and memberships

• Committee member of the City of London Law Society (CLLS) 
• The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
• Whitehall and Industry Group Lawyers’ Network (WIG)
• Member of the Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers (ARDL)
• Law Society of England and Wales
• Financial Services Lawyers Association (FSLA)
• Fellow of the Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries