The Hansen Palomares Team

Ole Hansen - Partner

Ole Hansen now works mainly on professional negligence and personal injury cases. He has been a legal aid lawyer for over 30 years. After legal aid practice in Hackney he was Director of the Legal Action Group and then combined work as a journalist, lecturer, legal consultant, and television producer/presenter before returning to full-time practice in 1995 to set up Ole Hansen & Partners, which has now become Hansen Palomares.

Ole has written three books and innumerable articles on legal practice. In 2005 he was the Legal Aid Practitioners' Group "Legal Aid Personality of the Year". Since 1995 he has not had much time for writing but see "CLACs and CLANs – a new reality?" Legal Action August 2006 and commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ole_hansen

Ole is fluent in Danish and speaks some Spanish.

His reported cases include:

David Truex (A Firm) v Simone Kitchin [2007) EWCA Civ 618

Michael Archangel v Lambeth Borough Council (2001) 33 HLR 480

Bigden and others v Lambeth Borough Council (2001) HLR (2001) 33 HLR 478

Waters v Metropolitan Police Commissioner HL (2000) 4 All ER 934

Eileen Annette Waters v Sarah Ruth Maguire LTL 13/5/99

Maria Mercedes Palomares - Partner

Maria Mercedes Palomares is the partner in overall charge of our housing and community care work. Maria specialises in access to housing and social services with particular focus on the rights of disabled people, migrant workers and asylum seekers. She has also worked in education law representing students with special educational needs and until 2004 practised asylum law.

Maria was born in Colombia where she obtained a degree in sociology. After coming to the UK she undertook voluntary work for Latin American community organisations. Qualifying as a social worker in 1981, she was employed from 1983 onwards in law centres as a housing worker before becoming involved in setting up Ole Hansen and Partners and qualifying as a solicitor in 1996.

Maria is a native Spanish speaker and speaks some Portuguese.

Her reported cases include:

Osei v Southwark LBC [2007] EWCA Civ 787

Anufrijeva v LB Southwark [2003] EWCA Civ 1406

R v Southwark LBC ex p Kuzeva [2002] EWCA Civ 781

R v Secretary of State v Consuela Hashmi LTL 25/4/2002

Lara ten Caten - Associate

Lara ten Caten works mainly in community care and housing and on personal injuries claims. She has particular expertise in obtaining social services support for under 18 asylum seekers (especially where the age is in dispute) and for children leaving care.

Lara was born in Brazil, trained with us and qualified as a solicitor in June 2004. Previously she specialised in mental health law in a law centre and private practice also undertook voluntary work as an advocate for gays and lesbians with mental health problems.

Lara is a native Portuguese speaker and also speaks fluent Spanish and some French.

Her reported cases include:

Gordon Binomugisha v Southwark London Borough Council [2006] EWHC 2254 (Admin)

Lambeth London Borough Council (2) Hyde Southbank v O’Kane; [2005] EWCA Civ 1010

Natasha Cade - Associate

Natasha Cade Specialises in housing, community care and welfare benefits. She qualified as a solicitor in 2005 after training with us and also has a Licence de Droit from Paris University. Before starting her solicitor's training Natasha was a Refugee Orientation Project Volunteer with the Red Cross Refugee Project. She was on the Management Committee of the Latin American Disabled Peoples Project from 2004 to 2008. She is a duty advocate at Lambeth County Court.

Natasha is a native French speaker. She also speaks fluent Spanish and some Portuguese.

Nadine Clarkson - Associate

Nadine Clarkson is head of our welfare benefits department. She also specialises in housing and community care law including possession and disrepair claims and access to social services. She has particular knowledge and experience in protecting the rights of workers from outside the UK and their dependants.

Nadine started with us as a welfare rights adviser in 1998. She qualified as a barrister in 2002 and, after training with us, became a solicitor in February 2004. She is a solicitor-advocate with rights of audience in the higher civil courts. Nadine is a duty advocate in Lambeth County Court.

Nadine was chair of the Latin American Disabled Peoples Project from 2004 to 2007 and is currently on the management committee of the London Advice Services Alliance. She was short-listed for the Young Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year award in 2006.

Nadine speaks Spanish.

Her reported cases include:

Irina Novitskaya v (1) Brent London Borough Council (First Repondent) (2) Secretary of State for Work & Pensions (Second respondent/Interested Party) [2009] EWCA Civ 1260

Secretary of State for Work & Pensions v Maria Dias [2009] EWCA Civ 807

Maria Teixeira v (1) Lambeth London Council (2) Secretary of State for the Home Department (2008) EWCA Civ 1088

Marie Jenny Courone & Ors (Appellants) v (1) Crawley Borough Council (2) Secretary of State for Work & Pensions (3) First Secretary of State (Respondents) : Francis Eddy Bontemps & Ors (Appellants) v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions (Respondent) & (1) West Sussex County Council (2) Reigate & Banstead Borough Council (Interested Parties) [2007] EWCA Civ 1086

Tkachuck v Secretary of State for the Department of Work & Pensions [2007] EWCA Civ 515

R v (1) Secretary of State for the Home Department (2) Secretary of State for Work & Penstions, Ex parte Nadezda Anufrijeva [2003] UKHL 36

Christian Hansen - Associate

Christian Hansen specialises in housing and community care work including homelessness, possession and disrepair. Christian qualified as a solicitor in 2002 after training with us. He is a supervisor of housing cases and a duty advocate in Lambeth County Court.

Cordelia Prokofiev - Trainee Soliciotr

Cordelia Prokofiev is currently a trainee solicitor while studying the Legal Practice Course part-time. Cordelia also works as an intern with the Refugee Legal Group and writes its fortnightly reports.

Cordelia speaks Spanish and is learning Russian.

Laura Sarkis - Paralegal

Laura Sarkis studied Law and Hispanic Law which involved a year studying in Madrid. She then completed the Bar Vocational Course at BPP Law School as a Jules Thorn Scholar of Middle Temple.

She is Vice-Chair of the Camden Independent Custody Visitors, a role which involves unannounced visits to police stations to ensure detainees’ rights are being respected whilst in custody.

Laura speaks Spanish and is conversational in both French and Armenian.

Jacobo Borrero - Office Manager - Trainee Solicitor

Jacobo Borrero is currently a trainee solicitor while studying the Legal Practice Course part-time. He also acts as office manager. He is in charge of our administration and our first point of contact for IT support. He has customised our Case Management System and developed and implemented the automation of document templates.

Jacobo was born in Colombia, is a native Spanish speaker and also speaks some Portuguese.

Begoña Roca - Administrative Assistant

Begoña Roca’s responsibilities include archiving, assisting with accounts and translations into Spanish. She is from Galicia and has an interest in languages. She has an English Language and Literature degree and has also studied translation and subtitling.

Begoña also speaks Galician.

Rocio Calero - Receptionist

Martha Silva - Accountant

Martha Silva carries out all our financial functions including management accounts, payroll, VAT and maintenance of the client account. She grew up in Colombia where she obtained a degree in computer sciences and also studied systems engineering. She came to the UK in 1985 and retrained as a Book-keeper / Accountant, working in a firm of chartered accountants specialising in the voluntary sector. Twelve years ago Marta became self employed and one of her first jobs was as accountant to our firm. She has been here ever since.

Marta is a native Spanish speaker.