Janine Wolstenholme > Park Square Barristers > Leeds, England > Barrister Profile

Janine Wolstenholme

0113 2459763

Work Department

Regulatory & Public, Personal Injury and Commercial & Chancery

Position

Regulatory & Public

Janine has vast experience in the Coroner’s Court (coroner and jury) representing interested parties in inquests involving deaths in custody, neglect, medical malpractice, mental health, substance abuse, including NPS, and road traffic accidents.  She has a particular interest in cases involving children and protected parties.

A significant proportion of her practice sees her acting for the State, public bodies and corporations such that she is very much aware of the wider statutory considerations that may arise in any given case.

The majority of cases in which she is instructed are Article 2 and jury inquests.   She is very familiar with Regulation 28 issues.  My experience ranges from short, natural causes deaths to cases lasting several weeks, with a number of interested parties.  The cases in which Janine is instructed often attract media interest.

Janine has significant experience in this area having acted for a range of government departments, local authorities, public bodies and insurers for many years.  Prior to joining chambers in 2007, she was an in-house advocate in local government for five years where she encountered a number of niche areas, including education law.  In addition to appearing in the Magistrates’ Courts in relation to non-school attendance, she provided advice and training to schools and councillors on a range of legal and policy-related issues arising in an educational setting, including compliance training with the then Disability Discrimination Act.

Janine also works within education law and recent instructions include representing Ofsted in a multi-day appeal against a decision to remove a child-minding licence following serious misconduct and regulatory breaches, as well as acting for local authorities, defending challenges concerning special educational needs including allegations of a failure to statement or provide an EHC Plan, failure to identify, or properly identify, a child’s needs, and a failure to provide adequate provision.  Such work necessarily involves a number of medical and mental health professionals and their decisions about the extent of a child’s needs.

She is also instructed to provide policy advice.  Recent instructions include a bespoke provision for children with significant needs, and families caring for those children, where the local authority had been found, by the relevant regulator, to be in breach of the statutory rules and procedures.  She has also advised on the provision of facilities at school for transgender pupils.

Janine sits as Chair on school admissions appeals.  She also has experience of acting, and acts for, parents wishing to challenge the failure to provide a school place in other local authority areas.  Recent instructions include a successful appeal on the grounds of maladministration in the application of the relevant academy’s policy.

Personal Injury

Janine has many years’ experience in casualty work acting for Claimants and Defendants.  Her practice includes injury, both bodily and psychiatric, and consequential loss arising out of clinical negligence, personal injury, employers’ liability, disease, occupiers’ liability, highways, product liability, accidents abroad, and motor claims (including MIB).  She has a genuine and long-standing interest in claims involving secondary victims and nervous shock having completed her undergraduate dissertation in this field.

She has experience of low value claims through to large loss actions following surgery (emergency, orthopaedic/routine and cosmetic), inadequate post-surgery care and treatment, delayed and failed diagnosis, neglect, as well as claims involving compulsory detention and mental health.  Janine has a particular interest in incidents resulting in loss of life, particularly those concerning children, protected and vulnerable parties.

She undertakes work at all stages from initial advice through to JSMs and trial, including inquests (coroner and jury), and fully contested multi-track trials and appeals lasting several days in the High Court.

A significant proportion of Janine’s current practice includes acting for NHSLAs, insurers, local government and, since her appointment as Junior Counsel to the Crown, Regional Civil Panel, in 2010, she is regularly instructed by the Crown and various State departments, both ministerial and non-ministerial.

Janine accordingly has an acute understanding of the wider, potentially lasting, implications that may arise in any given case, whether it relates to policy or because of political and media interest and scrutiny and approaches every case with such matters in mind.

Commercial & Chancery

Janine is regularly instructed by insurers in relation to a broad spectrum of indemnity disputes involving different types of insurance, including motor, casualty, business and property. She regularly drafts pleadings, provides advice and appears in court.

Many of her cases involve indemnity concerns, policy avoidance, statutory, contractual and common law recovery, and declaratory relief, including under the Road Traffic Act.  She is also experienced in the sale and supply of good and services, product liability, latent defects, consumer protection, premises liability, property damage, and nuisance.

Janine has significant experience in fraudulent and suspicious claims, including all aspects of exaggeration, deceit, injuries at work, slippers and trippers, staged/contrived road accidents, including stooge and ghost vehicles, ‘slam-ons’, bogus passengers, credit hire, and low-velocity impact (LVI).

She instructed across the whole spectrum of court hearings, in both the County and High Courts, dealing with a variety of issues from short applications to contested multi-track trials and appeals lasting several days.

Career

Call 2002

Appointments:
2010
Junior Counsel to the Crown (Panel B) (“Treasury Counsel”) regional civil panel

2011
Lay-member of Education Admission Appeals Panel

2012
Chair of Education Admission Appeals Panel

2018
Assistant Coroner for West Yorkshire (Eastern)

2021
Junior Counsel to the Crown (Panel A) (“Treasury Counsel”) regional civil panel

Memberships

North Eastern Circuit
Personal Injury Bar Association

Education

2001
Sheffield Hallam University, LLB (Hons) 2.1

2002
Nottingham Law School, BVC (Very Competent)

2005
BPP London, Qualified Lawyers Transferred Test (A)

2006
University of Manchester, MA (Merit)