James is a Managing Associate in the Health and Care Advisory Team
He specialises in coronial law/inquests, defending clinical negligence/personal injury litigation and advising clients in respect of compliance and legal investigatory matters, including police investigations, regulatory reviews, and public inquiries. He also advises health and care clients in respect of Court of Protection matters.
James advises both public and private sector organisations, including health and care, emergency service/blue light and commercial clients, throughout the coronial process. He also represents clients at both pre-inquest review and final inquest hearings, conducting his own advocacy. James has extensive experience of Article 2, jury and multi-agency inquests. Many of James’ inquest instructions also involve associated employment, regulatory/compliance issues.
James has extensive experience of defending clinical negligence claims pursued against healthcare providers. James has defended claims pursued against Acute, Ambulance and Mental Health Trusts. He has managed a complex caseload, including high value and multi-party litigation.
James also advises clients in respect of wider personal injury litigation, including Defendants facing employers liability and public liability claims, as well as associated occupational health and data protection matters.
James is widely experienced in managing the defence of a claim throughout the pre-action protocol and subsequent litigation process, including dealing with pre-action disclosure/subject access requests, investigating allegations of negligence pleaded in Letters of Notification/Letters of Claim and formal Particulars, drafting Letters of Response/Defences, dealing with disclosure, obtaining factual witness statements, instructing independent experts, advising in case/pre-trial conferences, taking matters to trial, attending mediation/settlement meetings and advising on quantum/settlement.
James also acts for organisations who are subject to a criminal police investigation. He has dealt with a number of cases where clients are faced with gross negligence/corporate manslaughter investigations.
James is additionally instructed by clients in connection with their participation in public inquiries and also acts for clients in the Court of Protection, including serious medical treatment and health & welfare proceedings, as well as cases involving deprivations of liberty. He has also dealt with judicial review matters.
He provides ad hoc advice to clients in relation to health and care legal issues and also as part of Ward Hadaway’s Healthcare Urgent Response Team out of hours. This includes the provision of advice in respect of Court of Protection jurisdiction, issues of capacity/refusal of treatment, cases involving vulnerable patients, safeguarding, consent and human rights. He supports clients with wider risk management reviews and incident learning.
He has undertaken secondments in the legal departments of clients and also regularly delivers training workshops and seminars to clients on various aspects of health and care law, including Inquests and associated patient safety investigations, medical manslaughter, negligence claims, Duty of Candour and associated compliance/regulatory matters.
James graduated from the University of Northumbria, Newcastle in 2011 with a first class honours degree in Law prior to commencing his training contract with Ward Hadaway
Expertise: Services
Healthcare