Legal Director

Laura is a Legal Director in our Medical Negligence team, based in Newcastle; she joined us in 2024.

She has exclusively practiced in clinical negligence for 15 years in the North East. Laura found her passion for clinical negligence work when working as a paralegal in a national clinical negligence team. She then qualified as a solicitor in 2011.

Laura worked for Thompsons for 16 years before working as a Director at a local firm in Sunderland.

Laura has an extensive caseload, providing invaluable experience in dealing with a variety of complex clinical negligence claims, with particular expertise in fatal accident claims and unique dependency claims. Laura has a vast case load dealing with: brain injuries, delay in diagnosis of cancer, surgical errors, delay in diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, and delay in diagnosis and treatment of cauda equina syndrome. Laura also has experience in preparing for and representing client’s at inquests.

Given Laura’s encyclopaedic knowledge in dealing with fatal accident claims and dependency claims,  Laura has taken on multiple unique dependency claims, namely:

• Laura is representing a family in a fatal claim where there was a failure to diagnose a pulmonary embolism in a 28-year-old which led to her death. An inquest took place which didn’t indicate that the pulmonary embolism could have been detected, but despite this she has gone on to obtain two supportive expert reports, served a Letter of Claim and received a full admission of liability in the defendant’s response. The deceased has left two young, dependent children, one of whom is autistic.
• Laura is representing the family of a 24-year-old man, who died as a result of failings within the ambulance service. He has left a two-year-old dependent child.
• She is also dealing with a fatal accidents claim involving a failure of an emergency department to suspect a perforated peptic ulcer and refer her to general surgeons for assessment. She was discharged and was found dead in bed two days later.  Laura attended the inquest with the family and has a close bond with them.  The deceased was 49 years old when she died, and the case involves large, complex dependency claims due to the widower suffering from a severe stroke, which the deceased would have provided care services for.

Laura is currently dealing with a case involving the high-profile failings of the Breast Services at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. She has also settled cases involving still birth, the death of a child as a result of a failure to diagnose and treat sepsis, with two associated Human Rights’ Act claims, ureteric injuries during a hysterectomy, surgical errors leading to loss of vision and a perforation of a bowel during surgery to treat prostate cancer.

Laura settled a difficult case where a local Trust failed to diagnose and treat aortic dissection which led the patient’s death.  The deceased was in his late 50s and was a managing director of a company.  A forensic accountant was instructed to assist with the quantification of damages, and a large dependency claim was presented to the defendant.  Liability was denied in full and the case settled two weeks before the listed trial.

Laura is an advocate for collaborative working between claimant and defendant solicitors, hosting and attending a Northeast clinical negligence collaboration events. She is a skilled, thorough and efficient litigator. She is empathetic, supporting her clients through very traumatic events and driven to achieve the best outcome for her clients.