Automated & Electric Vehicles

Temple Garden Chambers is the foremost set of barristers’ chambers specialising in the laws of automated and electric vehicles.

We are especially active in the field, for example:

• Alex Glassbrook wrote the first British book on the law of self-driving vehicles, The Law of Driverless Cars: an Introduction, in 2017, which (with co-authors including Emma Northey) went to a second edition, A Practical Guide to the Law of Driverless Cars, in 2019.
• We set up the first British legal blog specialising in the law of automated and electric vehicles, www.aevlaw.com, edited by Emma Northey and Alex Glassbrook.
• Alex wrote the first textbook on the law of innovative motor vehicle technologies: Advanced, Automated and Electric Vehicle Law (Bloomsbury Professional, 2024).
• Our barristers participated in the Law Commission’s consultation on automated vehicle law (2018 to 2022) and remote driving (2022) and Alex led the team from several chambers which wrote the Bar Council’s detailed response to the Law Commission’s final consultation on AV law.
• In January 2022 Alex was appointed as the Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Road Transport Law at Imperial College London (based in the Centre for Transport Studies, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering).
• Alex advised Oxa (then Oxbotica) in relation to the first UK test of a zero-occupancy autonomous vehicle on a publicly-accessible road (May 2022).
• We have spoken at numerous conferences on new vehicle technologies, both in the UK and overseas.

We have assisted numerous organisations – large and small – in the legal, insurance, commercial, public and academic sectors. We take seriously our obligation to contribute to good and effective laws for new technologies – including artificial intelligence – so we play a leading role in law reform and teaching in the field.

We are specialised advocates in many courts, including civil and criminal courts, coroners’ inquests, public inquiries and international tribunals. Our expertise in road transport law spreads into all its aspects, including serious personal injury cases, specialist insurance work, environmental law and health & safety cases.

We are experienced in advising individuals, industry and public bodies, and are always delighted to give advice in the form that best suits the client – including, where appropriate, on a public access basis.