Personal Injury
Our Personal Injury Practice Group is recognised by its client base as a leader in its field and has a full range of skills and expert knowledge in every aspect of personal injury litigation.
The practice group possesses a highly regarded capability and strength in depth from top to bottom.
We act on behalf of both claimants and defendants. Instructions are received from public bodies, private organisations and individuals, whether they are funded by institutions, trades unions, the Legal Services Commission, privately or on a conditional fee basis. We are panel counsel for several major insurers.
Our practice group also handles group actions and claims for compensation for criminal injuries.
The personal injury practice group’s members have specialist knowledge and expertise in the following:
- Head and other catastrophic injuries
- Injuries at work – upper limb disorders; respiratory, asbestos and dermatological claims; deafness; stress at work.
- Psychological and psychiatric injury
- Road Traffic Accidents
- Credit Hire
- Occupiers’ and public liability
- Product liability
- Accidents at sea
- Holiday and Air Travel cases
- Clinical and dental negligence
- HSE work
- Infant settlements and Court of Protection
- Civil actions involving the police
- Criminal Injuries compensation
- Inquests
- Disaster litigation
We also have specialist teams in Clinical Negligence and Holiday Litigation.
We pride ourselves on our professional quality, practical approach and user friendliness. We endeavour to always be accessible to our clients and this enables us to respond promptly to formal instructions and quick queries alike.
St John’s Chambers has Law Society External Continuing Professional Development Accreditation and members regularly conduct seminars and contribute to in-house training seminars. The Personal Injury Practice Group regularly conducts seminars and provides bespoke in-house training to many of our clients. To see details of forthcoming seminars click here.
Recommendations:
Ranked at the top by both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500, St John’s Chambers Personal Injury Practice Group boasts several leaders at the Bar and has been consistently rated premier on circuit. The strength of our civil practice groups receives particular praise.
Legal 500 2007
St John’s Chambers is noted as ‘an excellent set of chambers for personal injury work whose level of service consistently outshines many of their, perhaps, better-known competitors’. Head of Chambers, Richard Stead, ‘provides fast, easy-to-understand, straightforward advice in high-value complex personal injury cases’. Andrew McLaughlin is ‘an extremely diligent barrister who always delivers within the required time frame’, and Glyn Edwards ‘provides an outstanding service, he is very approachable and is a preferred choice for both instructing solicitors and insurer clients’. Ian Bullock ‘is particularly skilled in cases involving fraud or deliberate exaggeration; very quick, ‘a wily old fox’. Anna Symington ‘demonstrates a depth of knowledge, skills in advocacy and understanding, all considerably well beyond her 2002 call’.
Chambers UK 2008
St John’s Chambers has cemented its reputation as a go-to set for personal injury advice. It includes a sizeable team of experts who carry out a mixture of claimant and defendant work. The ‘clever and able’ Christopher Sharp QC maintains a large following. His practice incorporates catastrophic injury claims and cases involving medical causation issues. One of the leading juniors in the region, Glyn Edwards is widely thought to be ‘head and shoulders above the rest.’ As one client noted: ‘It’d be hard to find someone better in the West Country.’ He receives a wealth of positive recommendations as a ‘tough opponent’ who produces ‘high-calibre arguments.’ Edwards has ‘flair and polish,’ as well as a ‘calm manner and great sense of humour,’ according to observers. Dealing with both claimant and defendant work, he is often instructed by the UK’s largest insurers in relation to a combination of employers’ liability, brain and spinal injury work. Richard Stead is celebrated for both his personal injury and construction-related professional negligence practice. He specialises in accidents involving animals. The ‘energetic’ Timothy Grice ‘takes no nonsense in the courtroom.’ He is developing a strong reputation for his industrial disease work, as is Andrew McLaughlin, a ‘methodical man’ who ‘knows how to stand his ground.’
