Marlena has a wide-ranging practice across all of Chambers’ main areas of work, with a particular emphasis on civil fraud, commercial disputes, public law, and international law. She has appeared in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, County Court, Upper Tribunal and the employment tribunal. Marlena also has an offshore practice, and has worked on substantial commercial cases in the Cayman Islands and the BVI.

Recent highlights of Marlena's practice include:

  • acting for an asset management company resisting winding up petitions and allegations of serious misconduct in relation to a USD500 million investment, with concurrent proceedings in the Cayman Islands, the BVI, the English High Court, and the LCIA
  • acting for the claimants seeking the largest ever account of profits at the quantum stage of a dispute concerning the management of the estate of a deceased Georgian billionaire
  • acting for a hedge fund in a challenge to the Financial Conduct Authority's decision to impose a £40.8 million fine and a redress scheme
  • acting for the Duke of Sussex in a judicial review over the decision to remove his State security
  • acting for a couple challenging a NHS body's policy that lesbian couples must self-fund 12 rounds of artificial insemination before they can receive IVF
  • acting for a person seeking recognition of their foreign-acquired non-binary gender

Before coming to the Bar, Marlena worked for a variety of legal charities and taught public law at the University of Oxford. She also spent a year as the judicial assistant to the Master of the Rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, where she worked on a range of commercial, public, and EU law appeals.

Experience

Shortlist

Commercial

Marlena has a predominantly commercial practice. She does a range of commercial work, acting and advising on matters on her own, as well as working as part of large commercial teams on complex multi-jurisdictional disputes.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Civil Fraud, Asset Recovery & Injunctive Relief

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of civil fraud, asset recovery, and injunctive relief.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Public & Regulatory

Marlena frequently acts and advises on public and regulatory matters.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Civil Liberties & Human Rights

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of civil liberties and human rights. 

Before coming to the bar, Marlena worked for legal charities acting within the fields of LGBT rights, asylum law, and national security law. 

Marlena has a particular interest in children's rights. She won the Oxford Law Faculty Prize for Children, Families, and the State and completed an MPhil on the interaction between the welfare principle and the autonomy rights of teenagers.


Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Financial Services & Banking

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of financial services law. 

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Discrimination

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of discrimination law.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

EU & Competition

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of EU law. 

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Public International Law

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of public international law.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Employment

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of employment law. She has a particular interest in discrimination law.

Cases

Grid view
List view
Shortlist

Sport

Marlena accepts instructions in all areas of sports law.

Cases

Grid view
List view

Achievements

Education

  • MPhil in Law (Distinction), University of Oxford
  • BCL (Distinction, top of year), University of Oxford
  • LLB Hons (First Class, 2nd in year), University of Edinburgh

Prizes & Scholarships

  • Bedingfield Scholarship (Gray's Inn)
  • Clarendon Scholarship (Oxford)
  • Vinerian Scholarship for best performance on the BCL (Oxford) 
  • Law Faculty Prize for Comparative Equality Law (Oxford)
  • Law Faculty Prize for Children, Families, and the State (Oxford)
  • Jesus College BCL Prize (Oxford)
  • Best performance in final year law exams (Edinburgh)
  • Best performance in Criminal Law, EU Law, and Jurisprudence (Edinburgh)

Other relevant experience

Before coming to the bar, Marlena taught public law at the University of Oxford and worked for a variety of human rights organisations, including the Human Dignity Trust and Rights Watch UK. Marlena also spent six months in Greece working pro bono for Refugee Legal Support-Athens, Khora Community Centre, and Refugee Law Clinic-Samos.

Marlena was a keen competitive debater at university and has taught debating and public speaking around the world. She was the winner and best speaker of a number of debating competitions and was a two-time Grand Finalist of the European Universities Debating Championships.





VAT registration number: 393649058

Barristers regulated by the Bar Standards Board

+44 (0)207 5831770

Clerks

Staff