Sarah Martin practises in all areas of commercial law, with a particular emphasis on insurance and shipping.  In the insurance sphere, Sarah has developed particular expertise in total loss insurance claims arising from large-scale marine casualties, including vessel collisions (both in port and at sea), arrests, seizures and detentions.  She has also built a wide-ranging shipping practice, covering disputes involving charterparties, carriage of goods, commodities, shipbuilding, ship sale and purchase, and navigation-related matters falling within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court.  She has acted in a large number of LMAA arbitrations, and is also experienced in obtaining urgent injunctive relief from the Commercial Court in support of ongoing arbitrations, including worldwide freezing injunctions and anti-suit injunctions.

The majority of her cases include a jurisdictional and/or foreign law dimension, so she has a detailed understanding of conflicts of law issues, and is accustomed to working closely with teams of foreign lawyers, most recently in the U.S., Venezuela, Bulgaria, and Greece.

Having originally qualified as a solicitor in Melbourne, Australia, Sarah was awarded a Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Scholarship to study for the BCL and MPhil at the University of Oxford.  Upon completion of these studies she re-qualified as a UK solicitor with Freshfields, where she practised in the Dispute Resolution group, before transferring to the Bar in 2007 and joining 7KBW.