Even before becoming a lawyer, the barrister Philip Engelman, who has died aged 68, displayed the chutzpah that characterised much of his work at the bar, and which went hand in hand with a maverick streak that didn’t always endear him to authority.

As a student he took a holiday job hop-picking in Kent — an unusual decision for a north London Jewish lad who had almost certainly never been on a farm in his life.

When the farmer asked for volunteer tractor drivers Philip put his hand up, despite the fact that he had never driven a tractor, nor even a car and didn’t have a licence.

The outcome was predictable: within minutes the tractor was in the ditch, and he had been relieved of driving duties. He found the episode hugely amusing.

That combination of self-confidence, sometimes misplaced, and reluctance to take anything too seriously stood him in good stead as a lawyer. He went on to enjoy a distinguished career.

But despite applying several times he was never permitted to become a QC: perhaps he trod on too many toes.Meanwhile, he lived for the last 25 years with a wasting disease that gradually deprived him of mobility and eventually rendered him almost inaudible.

Fellow barristers remember him as “endlessly fun and amusing” as well as deeply committed. His sense of fun extended into the courtroom. During one judicial review brought on behalf of Compassion in World Farming against regulations permitting the transport of live sheep on ferries, he placed a toy sheep in front of him every day as a mascot.

Philip Engelman was the eldest of three children — sister Norma and brother Mark, who also became a successful barrister, followed. His mother Freda worked in a dress shop; his father Harry (or Hymie) was a cantor in numerous synagogues, including Harrow, Liverpool and Whitley Bay.

Philip was educated at the Hasmonean High School for Boys and remained a respectful if not always observant Jew throughout his life. He won a place at Oxford, but his mother refused to let him take it up.

Instead he read law at University College, London, where he was Student Union president. He was called to the bar in 1979 and originally took a tenancy in chambers in Colchester, but in 1986 he moved to London where his career took off. A frequent opponent, Bowers KC, principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, called him “one of the most sought-after employment law barristers, and it’s surprising that he never took silk”.

In one case he successfully and ingeniously argued that a disabled council employee had been wrongly dismissed after losing his temper over a lack of wheelchair access at a meeting. Philip persuaded the appeal tribunal there was an indirect connection between the man’s disability and the racist language that led to his dismissal.

The sacking therefore amounted to discrimination.

But at the age of 40 he was diagnosed with incurable, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. He kept the diagnosis secret, fearing it might affect solicitors’ willingness to offer him work. When he began walking with a stick he would claim to be suffering from gout.

“He was very stubborn and very determined,” says his friend Daphne Romney KC. When she asked him why he carried on working, he replied in ef-fect, “What else would I do?”

Former colleagues remember him fondly: he was especially helpful to youngsters just starting out. Adam Solomon KC calls him “funny and brilliant, and absolutely fearless in court”.

Paul Epstein KC credits his own decision to become a barrister to the week he spent with Philip after leaving university. “His natural anti-authoritarianism gave him courage,” he says.

He was married twice, to Dianne Rocks, a solicitor, and then to Joanne Briggs, a former pupil in chambers, whom he married in a Jewish ceremony in Middle Temple Hall. Both marriages ended in divorce.

He is survived by Rachel, his daughter from his first marriage, and by his partner for the past 20 years, Carolyn Pearson.

Philip Engelman: born January 25, 1955. Died March 5, 2023.