fourteen is the approved and regulated legal practice of Nathan Roughton, Sole Director & Senior Solicitor.
Nathan has been a qualified and practising solicitor since March 1998. He has worked as a solicitor for leading national firms. He has been at partner level and now is a principal. Nathan has worked as a senior civil rights lawyer since 2013. He is proud to have worked with lawyers who are amongst the top echelons of the Bar.
As head of the private law department at “a pioneering force in the civil liberties sector”* Nathan developed top level career experience in human rights law and practice, including test cases (which required a legal precedent to resolve) and international law. Working for clients located across the UK and abroad, Nathan helped to maintain (and enhance) the national and international reputation of the firm in human rights law. Working with international lawyers in the UK and abroad, Nathan helped manage civil and environmental group actions (and evidential investigations) from Beirut, Istanbul and Kenya. Other notable High Court (human rights) case successes were to include, finally obtaining public accountability for bereaved victims where access to key evidence was (robustly) withheld by HM government departments, just satisfaction for a child victim with special educational needs until adulthood, helping to protect a detained and vulnerable individual from international criminal gangs on forced removal from the UK and a number of unlawful detention in custody cases (including but not limited to immigration).
[* Chambers & Partners-Chambers UK -SOLICITORS a Client’s Guide - London & UK-wide: Civil Liberties & Human Rights]
Working under Lord (John) Hendy KC, Nathan acted in (successful) human rights cases and of significant wider public interest that:-
Devised (and improved existing) Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) approaches under understanding reached with HM Government - to fairly compensate victims of systematic abuse during their unlawful detention and saving legal costs payable by the public purse.
Improved health & safety in basic Army training - to help avoid likely death or serious injury to new recruits and within the boundaries of public policy.
Improved equal (and non-discriminatory*)employment terms and protection for locally engaged staff by HM Government - who are of different national origins* but operate at comparable risk to their own safety to help UK interests in different countries and territories around the world.
Nathan’s law firm, fourteen, was approved on higher level professional recommendation in 2016. fourteen are (and continued working) for victims in important civil and human rights cases. Nathan has successfully brought cases for victims in the High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice (London), since 2008.
Nathan and fourteen have an excellent record in winning rights cases, focusing on UK rights of equal treatment for all (without discrimination), the rights to respect for life, family, home and the rights of every child; with legal costs recovered against well resourced opponents, so that ordinary people do access justice. This work has included test cases of significant wider public interest and without the support of legal aid.
As an undergraduate and post graduation, Nathan worked as a shipyard labourer in South Bank, Middlesbrough. His life values and as a lawyer are for anyone in need of a bit of help and protection in life affecting and difficult circumstances.
As a newly qualified solicitor, Nathan had the benefit of working under a (leading and nationally recognised) solicitor negligence specialist in Teesside, firmly establishing his own practice in ethical standards; he has trained (and supervised) many young aspiring lawyers himself to meet such high expectations.
Nathan and fourteen subscribe to ethical belief that the professions (including law) are honourable.
As a practising civil lawyer, Nathan has helped victims of the acts and/or omissions of a (mercifully small) number of solicitors and barristers. He assisted in High Court litigation which led to online slurs* (for personal gain) against the good reputation of lawyers, being dismantled. *The Law Society’s action has been widely reported.
Just legal actions include hard fought improvements in fairness and avoiding unjust outcomes (i.e. safeguarding minimum standards of human rights protection) relating to the work of the Family Court, mental health care in the operation of private health care systems within the prison estate, systemic discrimination in public healthcare and local education policies and procedures, and where UK GDPR minimum governance standards for data protection by certain public authorities have fallen well short in Court service, education and healthcare (particularly where poor governance has infringed the protected rights of all children and their families).
The confidence of the public in legal practitioners is a fundamentally important duty for all lawyers. Having always worked to the best quality standards and with a diverse range of lawyers, some of whom were awarded senior judicial appointments, Nathan and his firm are able to advertise such established facts of professional qualified experience.
fourteen work collectively and in modern professional ways with top ranked Queen’s Counsel and junior barristers, lawyers, NGOs, crowd funding organisations, not-for-profit organisations and registered charities, leading universities, law centres, certain news papers, independent businesses, awarding winning creatives and pro-bono (if and when we can).
Nathan is a Bachelor of Arts (with Honours) in the Faculty of Arts of The Victoria University of Manchester. www.manchester.ac.uk/
Nathan is admitted as Master of Laws in Human Rights Law (by the School of Law**) of The University of Nottingham. www.nottingham.ac.uk/law/
Nathan & fourteen are supporters of a number of public interest campaigns, non-governmental organisations and charities which are close to our beliefs, heart and experience.
** Top 60 worldwide for law - Times Higher Education - World University Rankings by Subject 2022
