End Of An Era As Social Justice Lawyer Calls Time On 48-Year Career
Patrick Allen, senior partner at Hodge Jones & Allen (HJA) is to retire from the firm he co-founded in 1977.
During a lifetime of legal practice, Patrick has been a tireless campaigner for justice with the simple aim of using the law to improve people’s lives by winning their cases and correcting injustice. He has taken on cases that others would not and used the law as a tool to effect change.
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 and is one of the largest ‘personal law’ providers with 10 departments and an annual turnover of £25m.
From October 1, 2025, HJA will be run by the firm’s existing management team, led by Chun Wong, head of dispute resolution and Julie Hardy, director of finance, alongside equity partners Agata Usewicz, Jayesh Kunwardia, Raj Chada and Leticia Williams.
Patrick qualified as a solicitor in 1977 but eight months before that he made plans to form a new law firm with Henry Hodge and Peter Jones. Together they created Hodge Jones & Allen which opened on September 1, 1977, from offices above a men’s outfitters on Camden High Street. Henry Hodge framed a £5 note which he received for his first fixed fee interview. A criminal client later stole this.
Patrick was managing partner from day one and took on the senior partner role following Henry’s retirement in 1998. He served on the Executive Committee of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) from 1993 to 2006, was President of APIL in 2003 – 2004 and was APIL Law Society Council Member between 2002 and 2006. He was also a Deputy District Judge from 1998 to 2014.
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.
Patrick embarked upon a career in the law after seeing a friend wrongfully arrested and charged by the police at a demo in 1971, and later acquitted in court. Patrick gave evidence at the trial.
He explains: “The case helped me realise that there was a political and socially useful side to the law. There and then I decided on a legal career to help people assert or defend their rights against powerful opponents. I wanted to be a ‘radical’ or progressive lawyer correcting miscarriages of justice and changing the law where necessary.”
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.
The firm has maintained its founding service lines across personal injury, civil liberties, criminal defence, medical negligence, dispute resolution, housing, wills, and probate.
“I take great pride in the development of Hodge Jones & Allen, which after 48 years still holds to our founding ethos of fighting for justice. The firm employs over 250 people and still goes from strength to strength. As anyone who runs a law firm will know the economic headwinds, legislative change and financial pressures never abate, so to have stayed the course delivering the same work over almost five decades speaks volumes about our commitment to helping people in often unfashionable areas of the law.
“Over the years we have also helped over 300 lawyers to qualify. It has been my great privilege to act for so many amazing clients and work with dedicated and brilliant colleagues. I leave the firm with rock solid foundations and look forward to watching how it continues to evolve under new leadership.”
In retirement Patrick will continue his work with the Progressive Economy Forum, a think tank he founded in 2018, and devote more time to his family, travelling, windsurfing, skiing, vegetable growing and piano playing, amongst other things.