The Legal 500

Work Department

Personal injury.

Position

Senior partner. Acts for defendants in the public and private sector. Jonathan’s specialisation has focused on multi-party historic and non-historical child abuse claims against charities and public bodies. This has included advising in generic terms on likely future development and the value of such claims. Experience in the public sector has led to a provision of advice in education liability claims, including failure to educate claims, and advising on general strategy in relation to education departments. Jonathan has spoken at the National Alarm Conference and at the Association of Directorate Social Services Conference and recently was appointed to act as legal advisor to a wide-ranging review of local authority child protection policies. Jonathan’s expertise in employers’ and public liability claims has recently been based on advising larger corporate organisations on general management of their claims and developing policies in relation to stress management in the workplace and data protection issues. In his capacity as BLM’s client relationship manager with Zurich, Jonathan has advised on the development of a pre-litigation costs team, protocols and service agreements with sets of counsels’ chambers and created options for outsourcing of claims handling.

Career

Trained A W Mawer & Company; qualified 1984; senior partner Berrymans Lace Mawer, Leeds 2000, senior partner Manchester office 2005. Jonathan is a past guest editor and member of the editorial board of BLM’s flagship publication, ‘Disclosure’ – it is a magazine published every four months covering past and future developments in the world of liability law. He has also spoken at BLM’s annual claims reviews, which attract more than 200 guests at three venues nationally.

Member

Law Society; Forum of Insurance Lawyers; British Insurance Law Association.

Education

University of Manchester (LLB Hons).

Practice Areas

Health and safety; Personal injury - defendant; Public sector