20th November 2024 ❘ Burnetts' News
Our recent promotions – Mick Laffey
Our recent promotions – Mick Laffey…
Introducing Mick Laffey, who was recently promoted to Partner at Burnetts. Mick has been with us for almost two years and works within our Serious Injury team.
What does that actually involve?
I am privileged to be able to help clients and their families at the most vulnerable times in their lives – after serious and catastrophic injuries.
A quick breakdown of your day to day:
My days are very varied and can include interviewing clients, instructing medical experts, drafting letters of claim or statements, helping in the organisation of rehabilitation and obtaining prosthetic limbs and other equipment. I am often out of the office too, seeing clients at home, in hospital or at rehabilitation centres, or at events linked to my role organised by fellow professionals in the field.
What do you like best about your job?
That I can make a real difference to people’s lives. It’s as simple as that.
What do you find challenging?
Not being able to help because no one was to blame for an accident. By help I mean providing treatment, rehabilitation, equipment, prosthetics and/or accommodation to make things easier, and helping clients to live the best life they possibly, as well as obtaining compensation for the accident itself. It’s not a nice feeling to be able to say I’m sorry I could not help more when people really need it. It’s about looking after people. You can’t do this job if that’s not how you feel.
How did you find your way to this career?
I was working as a trainee manager at J Sainsburys PLC when I had a spinal injury. Realising I needed to find a new job I could do while sitting down, I decided to try and become a solicitor.
Your hope for the future career-wise?
To continue what I am doing now and to get better at it. There’s always something new to learn.
A little known fact about you?
I effectively played myself in the 2016 Ken Loach film, “I, Daniel Blake”. I was the lawyer who helped the titular character at his tribunal at the end of the film. Also, I once (in 2017) beat Mo Farah in the Great North Run. He was running and I was using a racing wheelchair. Admittedly with a 30 minute head start.
A while ago Mick wrote a series of News pieces sharing his own personal experience of spinal injury and how at the age of 19 he was diagnosed with a rare condition called AVM and had to begin using a wheelchair. You can read the first part in his series here.