Sandra Boye-Clarkson

Sandra is a trainee solicitor working for Meriel Hodgson-Teall and Richard Meeran in the International and Group Litigation Department. She completed her first seat in the Personal Injury Department, working for David Preston. She previously worked as a paralegal for Martyn Day.

While working in the International Group Litigation Department she has worked on the following cases:

• Claims by more than 100 residents from two quilombola communities in Brazil against Brazil Iron for alleged pollution from its mine.
• Claims against Amerisur Resources Plc brought by individuals, mainly small-scale farmers and their families, in relation to an oil spill in 2015 that they alleged contaminated their local waterways.
• Claims against Vedanta Resources Plc and its Zambian subsidiary brought by over 2,500 Zambian individuals that alleged harm caused to their land and waterways by pollution emanating from the Nchanga copper mine. This case led to a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in 2019, establishing important principles of parent company liability.
• Josiya & Ors v British American Tobacco Plc & Ors – claims by Malawian tobacco farmers and their wives and children alleging that BAT and/or Imperial have been unjustly enriched because the tobacco has been produced in conditions that amount to child and forced labour.
• Government accountability cases including claims by Iraqi civilians against the Ministry of Defence.
• Claims on behalf of Lithuanian chicken catchers for alleged severe labour exploitation - Galdikas & Ors v DJ Houghton Catching Services & Ors (the UK’s first successful High Court case against a British company in relation to modern slavery) and Antuzis & Ors & Necajus & Stirblys v DJ Houghton Catching Services & Ors (a second group of claimants with claims against the same defendants).
• Diesel emissions litigation – claims relating to allegations that certain diesel vehicles contain “cheat devices” that enable them to mislead emissions tests.

During her first seat in the Personal Injury Department, she worked on claims representing individuals who had sustained serious and complex injuries.

Before joining Leigh Day, she interned at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) in Berlin in their Business and Human Rights Department, working on matters including labour exploitation in the textile industry and pesticide abuse. She also interned at Al-Haq in Ramallah, working on issues including natural resource exploitation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Israeli and International companies.

She has a degree in Economics from the University of Edinburgh and speaks fluent Spanish, having spent a year studying Spanish Law at the Complutense University in Madrid.