Maria Strauss

Partner

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Practice areas

Employment
Safeguarding

Maria advises a broad spectrum of clients including private companies, not-for-profit organisations, independent schools, banks, sports clubs, Churches and faith-based organisations on employment law and safeguarding matters.

Maria also acts for senior executives, particularly in the context of investigations or inquiries that they are involved in.

On the employment side, Maria’s typical caseload involves advising employers on the handling of sensitive personnel situations and investigations often into alleged misconduct, harassment, bullying or discrimination. Maria has guided employer clients through many complex matters ranging from one off cases to issues that may involve or impact on many staff members. She also advises HR teams (from all sectors) on more routine areas of employment law, such as performance management and staff exits.

Maria was one of the founding members of Farrer & Co’s Safeguarding Unit. She advises organisations who work with children on their legal obligations and has helped clients embed safer cultures through audits and support with policies and procedures. As well as advisory work, Maria has advised on a significant number of safeguarding cases. This involves working with clients and statutory authorities, advising on (or carrying out) investigations into allegations and guiding clients through external processes such as independent reviews or regulatory proceedings (particularly the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA)).

The nature of Maria’s cases means that she often works closely with the firm’s media and reputation management lawyers and data protection lawyers. Maria is a versatile lawyer with excellent knowledge of related legal areas such as GDPR, charity law, disputes and insurance law. Maria co-leads the firm’s investigations practice, she is an "Achieving Best Evidence" trained investigator and is closely involved with the firm’s Tomorrow Together sustainability campaign.

Maria qualified as a solicitor in 2008.

Expertise

Schools

Maria advises independent schools on: parental complaints, SEN and disability cases, safeguarding, staff issues, pupil disciplinaries, serious incident reports to the Charity Commission, allegations of non-recent abuse and Tribunal claims. Maria acted for a number of residential schools in the context of independent case reviews and disclosure exercises to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Maria has this year developed a dedicated Investigations Guide for schools.

Faith-based Organisations

Maria advises churches and religious organisations on contentious or complex safeguarding cases, allegations of non-recent abuse, redress schemes and independent case reviews. She acted for both the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Methodist Church in IICSA as well as advising conflict witnesses from the Anglican Church inquiry. This work involved Maria preparing senior clergy in the Catholic Church for giving live televised evidence.

Sports

Maria has advised clients across the sports sector including tennis, football, swimming and athletics. She has helped organisations in this sector respond to complex and often high-profile problems across the areas of employment and safeguarding law including non-recent abuse claims, live cases of sexual harassment, major case reviews and staff terminations.

Senior Executives

Maria supports the work of the Senior Executive practice of the firm. She advises senior executives on their participation in reviews, investigations and inquiries (or Select Committee hearings) positioning them in a manner which considers both their legal and wider reputational best interests. This work often sees Maria work with external PR and Reputation Managers.

Reported cases

Maria was instructed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham in its participation as a case study in IICSA, read here.

British Airline Pilots Association v Jet2.Com Ltd [2017] EWCA Civ 20: Maria acted for BALPA in its successful appeal against a ruling that the Respondent airline Jet2.com Ltd ("Jet2") was only required to negotiate with BALPA about the pilots' rostering arrangements in certain limited respects conceded by Jet2.

President of the Methodist Conference v Preston [2013] UKSC 29: Maria acted for the Methodist Church in its successful appeal to the Supreme Court on the question of the employment status of its ministers.

Recent cases

This year, Maria has advised:

A major charity on its response and investigation into an anonymous whistleblowing complaint against the CEO,
A not for profit organisation on the capability and performance of a senior individual in its finance department where there were serious concerns,
A not for profit organisation on a case of ‘upwards bullying’ (and undermining of management) with related grievances and Tribunal proceedings,
A private members club in relation to the application of the Equality Act 2010 to service users,
A religious organisation on numerous matters arising from a recently established redress scheme following the closure of a Church,
A livery company on its response to workplace sexual harassment,
An independent school on a complex relationship at work issue with allegations of domestic abuse,
An independent school on conflict resolution amongst its senior leadership team (deploying workplace mediation as a strategy),
Numerous independent schools on parental complaints often with legal counsel acting for the parents.

In the past Maria has advised on numerous high-profile matters such as:

Advising organisations across tech, the arts and education on their response to social movements such as #MeToo and #BLM. These were major cases which often seen clients face numerous disclosures of allegations and the establishment of investigations involving of large numbers of witnesses.
Advising major London schools on their response to “Everyone’s Invited” (a MeToo type movement in the education sector). This was a high-profile movement and involved safeguarding, education law and reputational management input due to the size and scale of disclosures and issues.
Maria advised a leading football club on numerous safeguarding work streams and supported the club with its involvement in the Clive Sheldon FA Inquiry into abuse in football.

Maria is currently instructed in the Post Office Horizon Inquiry for a Senior Executive witness.

External publications

Working with colleagues around the firm, Maria has produced several major publications for clients as follows:

The schools investigation guide (available to clients and via the ISBA website)
The AGBIS Resource for Governors on equality, diversity and inclusion
A domestic abuse guide for employers (produced during Covid with an external expert)

Testimonials

"Maria is professional, engaging and highly astute." (Chambers UK 2024)

"She is a professional of the highest order and I feel it a great privilege to be able to call on her for her help; she deals with complex safeguarding situations with seeming ease." (Chambers UK 2024)

"Maria is absolutely brilliant. Her swiftness and keenness to respond, her fantastic advice and her innate sense of the right thing to do have been utterly invaluable." (Chambers UK 2024)