Nick Hanning (1964-2024)

Nick Hanning’s friend and colleague David Gilmore recounts his personal memories of Nick and details his illustrious career

When introducing Nick as a speaker for our webinars, I always referred to him as “the nicest man in the law” and that was entirely sincere. Not only that but he was the nicest man I ever met.

At his funeral, Journal editor Neil Rose said to me, “Sometimes I don’t recognise the person from the tributes at funerals but in this case, it is absolutely bang on”.

Nick was unusual in that he was incredibly clever, yet extremely modest. He was also a determined fighter. His father, Jack, at his funeral, said that Nick entered life as a fighter, having suffered with septicaemia within days of being born. He stayed in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for six weeks. The fighting spirit stayed with Nick throughout his life and continued until the very end.

A trailblazer

Nick was always a very a humble man, but it is not an overstatement to say that he was an absolute role model and a trailblazer. He had many ‘firsts’ in his illustrious legal career and paved the way for other lawyers to follow.

In 1990, Nick was admitted as a Fellow of what later became CILEX. In 2000, when rights of audience were extended to Chartered Legal Executives, Nick was one of the first to qualify as an advocate in civil proceedings. He was also recognised as one of the first Chartered Legal Executives to become a partner in a solicitors’ practice.

Nick was president of CILEX between 2012 and 2013 and was later appointed to the board of CILEx Regulation. He then became a Deputy District Judge, and a fee-paid employment tribunal judge. Last year, he became the very first CILEX lawyer to be appointed as a Recorder, otherwise known as a part-time circuit judge.

His reputation as a lawyer came from his experience in employment, discrimination and occupational health law, particularly in cases involving work-related psychiatric injury whether as a result of occupational stress, harassment or discrimination.

He acted for the claimant in a ground-breaking case against Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust which established employers’ vicarious liability for breach of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and in a case that achieved the highest ever employment tribunal award of over £4.5m. Nick’s work focused on helping individuals.

Intelligence and judgement

Nick was also a data protection specialist. He acted as data protection officer for Amicable, a hugely successful technology based family mediation firm which was recently bought by Octopus. He also delivered hugely popular webinars on the topic. Both we and Pip Wilson, joint founder of Amicable, valued his intelligence and judgement.

“Most of the things Nick wanted to do in his final years he achieved” 

Most of the things Nick wanted to do in his final years he achieved. In addition to being appointed as a judge, he enjoyed a number of lovely holidays with Martha. I am unsure whether he mastered being Norwich City on FIFA though!

At his funeral, very-well-written tributes were read by his close friends Paul Reynolds and Keith Barrett. Keith, a former CILEX president himself, made a very emotional tribute, and Paul shared many entertaining stories but emphasised that Nick felt that his greatest achievement was his son, Sam.

A personal recollection of mine is that on one occasion, when Nick and Martha stayed with us, I received a phone call from my panicked partner, Melanie. “I’ve locked myself out,” she explained. I was at work. “Well,” I said, “wake Nick and Martha up.” Simple. But she could not. Stones were thrown at the window to no avail. So, I went home and let Melanie in. Nick’s reaction? He bought us a key safe!

I’m finishing with words spoken by his father, who quoted the words of Kipling’s poem – Nick was a man “who could walk with kings and never lose the common touch”.

David Gilmore is a director at DG Legal