Personal injury
Personal injury (PI) law falls under the law of tort. It involves civil claims brought to obtain compensation for injuries so as to put the injured person back in the position that they would have been in had they not been injured. The subject matter varies considerably, and can range from controversial, high-profile disaster cases through to road traffic accidents and health and safety cases. A related, specialised practice area of PI law is clinical negligence, which involves injuries suffered during medical procedures. Theo Barclay’s passion for the legal profession was first ignited during his studies as a history undergraduate at Oxford. “During my second year I studied some legal history and from that point I thought that becoming a barrister was the way forward – principally because I wanted to be on my feet in court, arguing cases,” he recalls. An enjoyable work experience placement with a commercial solicitors’ firm failed to change Theo’s mind, while a couple of mini-pupillages confirmed that the Bar was where he wanted to be. After Bar school, Theo completed pupillage at XXIV Old Buildings in Lincoln’s Inn before moving to Hailsham Chambers, another commercial set, where he has built up a varied common law practice. “I essentially do a bit of everything,” he explains. “Having done a commercial pupillage and then a third six months at Hailsham concentrating mainly on clinical negligence, personal injury and professional negligence matters, I now have a wide variety of different sources of work. It really depends on what comes in at any given moment, but I generally have one or two bigger commercial cases rumbling along in the background, on which I’m a junior, complemented by the day-to-day paperwork of a common lawyer. My favourite part of the job, however, is representing clients in two or three trials a week. The majority of these are personal injury cases.”
Advocacy opportunities Regular court appearances are one of the main draws of PI work, in Theo’s view: “That’s the brilliant thing about having personal injury as part of your practice – even if you are only two years into your career, you’re in court all the time. That has really helped me improve as an advocate. Choosing a practice area that gets you into court is something that I would recommend to everyone. Court advocacy is something that a lot of commercial barristers don’t get to do that often, despite being the reason most of us decided to do the job in the first place. There is such a contrast between helping out on a big project and running the show, even on a case which is lower value. It is more interesting on a day-to-day basis when you are in control. As a tennis player might say – the match is ‘on your racket’. Personal injury is one of the few areas where you can take the lead in your own cases at only a couple of years’ call.” Choosing a practice area that gets you into court is something that I would recommend to everyone Some of the most interesting PI cases for barristers at Theo’s level of seniority concern fundamental dishonesty: “The general rule is that you cannot as a defendant recover your costs from a claimant, but that rule can be put aside if the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest. However, proving dishonesty in court is very difficult to do, so cases where you think the claimant has been dishonest are an exciting challenge for an advocate. In that situation, it is very important for your client not only to win the case, but also to convince the judge that there has been foul play, and to award the defendant their costs. This requires very careful cross examination in the hostile
For more chambers that work in this practice area, please use the “Pupillage index” starting on p519.
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