Judges

Chair of the Judging Panel

Andrew Twambley - Injury Lawyers4u

Biography

Andrew is a claimant personal injury lawyer. He was responsible for bringing such leading cases as Callery v Gray, Sarwar v Alam and lead the successful fight to rid the industry of "costs muppets". At the height of the so called "costs war" he would say anything to anyone to gain a headline, but age has now persuaded him to be a little more conservative and a little less adversarial... occasionally. In 2005 he starred in BBC TV series "No Win No Fee". Andrew has semi retired from the headlines and spends his time looking after Amelans and running Injurylawyers4U.

Dominic Regan

Biography

Dominic Regan is a solicitor, writer, broadcaster and an adviser to Lord Justice Jackson on costs management pilot and Professor at City University, London. He provides litigation training to a number of Government Departments and a plethora of law firms throughout the UK. Each month he hosts the Lexis Dispute Resolution webinar and is a New Law Journal columnist and wine critic for Counsel Magazine.

Nicholas Bevan- Enable Law

Biography

Nicholas is a founding director of Enable Law Ltd. He is a highly experienced insurance and personal injury solicitor. He is a Fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. He was recently senior counsel at Bond Pearce LLP where he advised both the Insurance and Personal Injury Departments and was responsible for training. He writes regularly for the New Law Journal, the Journal of Personal Injury Law and the Legal and Medical Journal. He is the author of Future Loss in Practice and of Division VIII of Butterworths Personal Injury Litigation Service. He is a member the editorial board of three different legal publishers. Nicholas is a well recognised legal commentator, lecturer, trainer and presenter and winner of the Personal Injury Awards 2008‘Outstanding Achievement Award’.



Anthony Hughes - Horwich Farrelly Solicitors

Biography

Anthony graduated from Sheffield University with an LLB (Hons) and has worked with a number of leading Manchester law firms, becoming a partner in 1995 and a Managing Partner in 2001. He has specialised in high value insurance matters arising from road traffic accidents, accidents at work and health and safety issues. He also has expertise in fatal accidents including a criminal element in terms of dangerous driving and death by dangerous driving. Anthony is an active member of the local business community and in 2004 was invited to join the Board of Preston North End Football Club where he continues as a non-executive director. Anthony is a member of the Executive Committee of leading lobby organisation the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL). Anthony joined Horwich Farrelly as Chief Executive in May 2009.

Alan Nesbit - ARC

Biography

Alan Nesbit set up Nesbit & Co Solicitors in Bury in May 2003. He has worked in the industry since 1996 and qualified as a Solicitor in 1999,and is an APIL Accredited Lawyer at Senior Litigator Level. He has worked on both the Claimant and Defendant Insurance side with various practices both large and small. He now spends his time concentrating on managing and driving forward the practice, now named Nesbit Law Group LLP, which has since opened offices in London, Luton and Leeds as well as Bury, and focuses on developing the sources of work at a corporate level. He has separate specialisations in Compliance and Hire, and earlier in his career, he was heavily involved in dealing with credit hire, both on the Claimant and Defendant side, where he assisted Credit Hire Companies with joining the ABI GTA when it first started and has continued to monitor developments in the industry and assist hire companies at all levels of their operations. He has ensured that Nesbit Law Group is now a member of MASS, an APIL accredited firm and an Associate Member of NACHO.

Alan has also been actively involved in ensuring that Claims Management Companies are given the correct advice to fit in with both their own regulations through the MOJ and the Solicitors Rules of Conduct which affect the referral of claims. Earlier in 2009, he set up ARC (Association of Regulated Claims Management Companies), which is a trade association representing small to medium sized claims management businesses, providing them with support and guidance and building clear paths of communication between the Regulator and ARC's members.

Joe Pendle - Insurance Services Office

Biography

Joe Pendle joined Insurance Services Office (ISO) in February 2004. He is responsible for ISO's Claims Services operation in the UK. Joe was formerly Group Operations Manager at the Motor Insurers' Bureau (MIB). At MIB he was responsible for bringing personal injury claims in-house and managing MIB's 120 claims handlers and 75,000 claims per annum. Joe was involved with the set up of the Motor Insurers' Information Centre (MIIC) and has a good knowledge of the Motor Insurance Database (MID). He has over 28 years of experience in general insurance claims since starting with the Federated Insurance Company in 1980. Joe has been responsible for handling personal injury claims for many of the companies that he has subsequently worked for. Joe was also instrumental in setting up MIB's anti-fraud strategy and Special Investigation Unit

Heather Batey - Reach personal injury services limited

Biography

Heather is an Occupational Therapist with 22 years experience specialising in the assessment and rehabilitation of brain injured individuals.

Heather is a founding Director of reach personal injury services limited and is responsible for the strategic and performance management and development within reach.

She has a background in health and social services and is committed to advancing the effectiveness of rehabilitation.

In addition, Heather is a key member of the College of Occupational Therapists independent sector interest group and is associated with several rehabilitation linked forums.

Nicholas Bacon QC - Four New Square

Biography

Nicholas Bacon is a leading silk in his specialised field of costs.  He has appeared in practically all of the most important costs funding cases in recent years.  His costs practice is well juxtaposed to his professional negligence work with particular emphasis on solicitors' negligence, both for and against solicitors.  This includes solicitors' regulatory and disciplinary work.

Judith Kelbie - 7 Solicitors LLP

Biography

Judith Kelbie is the Managing Partner at 7 Solicitors LLP.

7 is a specialist litigation practice based in Harrogate which Judith founded in 2010 having run a major Leeds firm for the previous five years. Working nationally with an international reputation Judith is also an Accredited Mediator and was for 6 years a peer elected board member of the Civil Mediation Council. She chaired the accreditation committee responsible for standards in mediation. Judith organised the CMC conferences which dealt with the upcoming reforms to the litigation process - and had the pleasure of an instructive evening sitting next to Sir Rupert Jackson at the conference dinner last year.

Judith has worked closely with the Ministry of Justice on aspects of reforming civil justice, contributed to the debate on better procedure, and has toured English Court centres raising awareness amongst the judiciary of alternate dispute resolution which is a feature of the forthcoming changes.

Judith is a Director of the London School of Mediation and has trained mediators in the UK, India, Europe and the Caribbean. Her next training course is in Tortola, BVI on 30th May.

Judith also leads and acclaimed training course for medico-legal expert witnesses organised by Healthcare Knowledge Limited (www.specialistinfo.com) which has trained or updated over 1200 doctors and professionals over the last six years. She is passionate about raising standards in expert witness reporting.

David Bott - Bott & Co

Biography

David is the Managing Partner of Bott & Company. David established the firm with Paul Hinchliffe and Gary Froggatt.  The trio shared a vision they remain committed to today, namely to provide an unrivalled service to individual clients and to claims companies.

David was elected to the Executive Committee of APIL in April 2006 - he is the Vice President and will be President in April 2011.

 

David was elected to the Executive Committee of the Law Management Section of the Law Society in April 2006.  He is currently the Vice Chairman of the Law Management Section and regularly lectures on business management, quality control and Lexcel.

David sat on the Law Society Civil Justice Committee and the Law Society Council between 2008 and 2010.

David Fisher - AXA

Biography

I have worked in the industry since 1983 with over 25 years injury claims experience having held a number of claims and managerial roles within AXA Insurance. In addition to my responsibility for neuro trauma claims I have a keen interest in all aspects of the injury claims arena and have spoken at a number of conferences on various PI related issues. My role combines managing AXA Insurance’s commercial neuro trauma claims team with involvement in a wide range of injury issues. In this context, I was responsible for AXA’s response to various Ministry of Justice consultations. I was also involved in developing AXA’s approach to rehabilitation and mediation. I am a member of the advisory council of Trust Mediation and JPIL editorial board. I do have a life outside of work and enjoy early morning walks with the dogs, Friday evenings in the pub and very occasional fly fishing.

David Fisher image

Donald Fowler - Premex

Biography

Donald is Managing Director of Premex Services, the UK’s leading medico-legal reporting organisation.  Donald is a qualified lawyer and prior to joining Premex spent 5 years in private practice and 8 years in the banking and private equity industries.  Donald’s key focus is on ensuring that Premex Services continues to provide market leading service levels to the 650+ solicitor practices that instruct Premex on a monthly basis.  Premex has launched a number of innovative IT service enabling products over the past few years and innovation continues to be a core part of the Premex strategy.  Premex’s focus on IT innovation was recognised at the 2010 and 2011 Claims Technology Awards and Premex is the current holder of the prestigious PI Awards Medical Agency of the year title.

Donald Fowler

Andy Whatmough - S&G Response

Biography

Andy has been in the accident management industry since 2001 when he first started answering the telephone in an insurance call centre. Since then, he has seen the industry from both the claimant and defendant perspective with experience of initiatives ranging from legal expenses to third party assistance programmes.

Andy is a director at S&G Response, with overall responsibility for legal panel management and the co-ordinated delivery of the highest quality client experience.