Will Bordell combines frontline legal experience with investigative rigor as a barrister-journalist specializing in human rights and justice reform. Currently contributing to The Justice Gap while practicing at Blackstone Chambers, his work exposes systemic inequities through data-driven analysis and ground-level reporting.
“Bordell’s Rwanda policy reporting set the gold standard for explaining complex immigration law to general audiences.” – UK Legal Journalism Awards Committee, 2024
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We’ve followed Will Bordell’s evolution from prodigious student journalist to barrister-journalist hybrid shaping legal discourse. Beginning as Three Rivers Young Journalist of the Year at 16, Bordell built early expertise through publications like The Freethinker before developing a niche at the intersection of law, civil liberties, and media ethics. His current role at Blackstone Chambers informs incisive analysis of judicial processes while maintaining bylines in outlets like The Justice Gap.
This 2018 interview showcases Bordell’s ability to distill complex philosophical concepts into accessible discourse. By engaging renowned philosopher A.C. Grayling on Bertrand Russell’s relevance to modern critical thinking, Bordell bridges academic philosophy with contemporary societal challenges. The piece’s structure – using Grayling’s critique of anti-intellectualism as a lens to examine education policy – demonstrates his signature method of anchoring abstract ideas to concrete policy implications.
In this 2020 investigation, Bordell analyzes 17 crowdfunded legal cases to reveal a 63% success rate in judicial review challenges. His methodology combines financial forensics with plaintiff interviews, exposing how platforms like CrowdJustice enable marginalized groups to challenge institutional power structures. The article’s impact led to parliamentary discussions about legal aid reform, cited by three All-Party Parliamentary Groups.
Bordell’s 2023 coverage of the Rwanda asylum policy litigation demonstrates his court reporting prowess. By embedding with legal teams from Matrix Chambers, he provided real-time analysis of Article 3 ECHR arguments while maintaining critical distance. The piece’s viral infographic explaining procedural timelines became essential reading for immigration law practitioners.
Bordell prioritizes structural legal issues like court funding disparities (evident in his 2022 series on family court backlogs) rather than sensational individual trials. Pitches should frame stories through policy implications – for example, how specific cases expose broader procedural flaws in the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
His work on BBC regulatory matters demonstrates interest in human rights dimensions of corporate actions. A successful pitch might explore how fintech compliance algorithms impact Article 8 privacy rights, combining technical and legal analysis.
The crowdfunding study exemplifies Bordell’s preference for empirical approaches. Propose collaborations with legal analytics firms to examine patterns in judicial review outcomes or FOIA request success rates across government departments.
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