Judge Barry Clarke
Employment Appeal TribunalEmployment TribunalTribunalsBiographies
Judge Barry Clarke has been the President of Employment Tribunals in England and Wales since 2020. He is the tenth President since the Employment Tribunals (and their predecessors, the Industrial Tribunals) were established in 1965.
In addition to his judicial work for the Employment Tribunals, Judge Clarke is authorised to sit as a judge of the High Court (King’s Bench Division) under section 9(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981; as a visiting judge of the Employment Appeal Tribunal; and, as a recorder, on both civil cases (in the County Court) and criminal cases (in the Crown Court).
Judge Clarke qualified as a solicitor in 1996. Prior to joining the judiciary, he was a partner in a national law firm, an Acas arbitrator, a trustee of a law centre, and a statutory committee member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He is also a former national chair of the Employment Lawyers’ Association and a former deputy chair of the Central Arbitration Committee.
Judge Clarke is a member of the Tribunals Judicial Executive Board, the Tribunals International Board, the Judicial AI Advisory Group, and the Lady Chief Justice’s Transparency and Open Justice Board. He is also a leadership tutor for the Judicial College. As part of the United Nations Global Judicial Integrity Network, he contributed to the development of international non-binding guidelines about the use of social media by judges.