Defendant employment lawyers are “preying on the pain and grief” of victims of sexual harassment at work by supporting gagging orders, a claimant specialist has told The Times.

In the latest shot fired in the battle over the ethics of non-disclosure agreements, Mark Stephens, a solicitor who acted for a British woman who broke her deal with Harvey Weinstein, has challenged defendant lawyers to drop their opposition to wholesale reform.

“Self-interested employment lawyers know that they are set to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds in fee income if NDAs become viewed through the prism of morality,” he says.

Stephens, a partner at the London law firm Howard Kennedy, acted for Zelda Perkins, a former assistant to the film mogul who is facing multiple