Matthew White > Chambers of Matthew White > Bristol, England > Barrister Profile
St John's Chambers Offices
St John's Chambers
101 VICTORIA STREET
BRISTOL
BS1 6PU
England
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Matthew White
Work Department
Personal Injury, Barrister & Mediator
Career
Call: 1997
Head of Chambers, Matthew White deals with all aspects of personal injury litigation for both claimants and defendants. He aims for a roughly equal split between claimant and defendant work, taking the view that it makes for a more rounded and better lawyer to have insight into the thinking of the opponent.
With 25 years’ experience, he has considerable expertise in serious injury claims, particularly brain and spinal injuries, highway law, industrial diseases (particularly asbestos), pain litigation, inquests and costs, as well as the more routine employers’ liability, public liability and road traffic claims.
He has a particular interest in and knowledge of claims for significant pension loss, whether in money purchase, final salary, or career average pension scheme situations, or, as is usual, a mixture of schemes. He is co-author of the Personal Injury Bar Association Guide to Pension Loss Calculation (Rowley KC & White, 2020), and lectures on pension loss.
He has been described by clients as “forensically thorough” with “fantastic attention to detail.” He has been recommended in Chambers and Partners and in Legal 500 for many years. He has been on the Attorney General’s panel of counsel to the Crown since 2002, including being on the A-panel of most senior counsel since that system was introduced outside of London, therefore trusted to deal with the most complex government cases and expected to be against KCs. He has appeared in a number of cases of note, including Barlow v. Wigan (Court of Appeal; stuts of highways and highway users), Brown v. South West Lakes & Others (Court of Appeal; extent of duty of care to unintentional trespassers), McDonald v. (1) Department for Communities and Local Government; and (2) National Grid (to Court of Appeal level; duty in relation to low level exposure to asbestos and the Asbestos Industry Regulations 1931), Shelborne v. Cancer Research UK (duty of employer in relation to work party), Jenkinson v. Robinson (fundamental dishonesty).
In addition to personal injury work, Matthew deals with issues relating to highway law in other contexts, and with nuisance claims, particularly those involving invasive species, particularly Japanese knotweed (including appearing in Davies v. Bridgend CBC). He thinks of himself as a “common lawyer” and enjoys occasional cases dealing with more obscure areas of law.
Memberships
Personal Injury Bar Association
Education
Oxford University (BA; MA).
Lawyer Rankings
Regional Bar > Western Circuit > Personal injury
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 1Matthew White – St John’s Chambers ‘Matthew has an incredible attention to detail. He is meticulous in his planning and written work and his persuasively balanced but no-nonsense approach makes him an exceptional advocate.’
St John’s Chambers is ‘an impressive set with a number of high-quality barristers’, praised by some as ‘the strongest set in the South West for claimant personal injury litigation’. Christopher Sharp KC handles medically and legally complex claims, often involving catastrophic brain and spinal injuries, for both claimants and defendants, while Andrew McLaughlin, a ‘tenacious advocate with vast experience’, represents insurers in high-value, multi-track claims. In Jenkinson v Robertson, Matthew White, ‘a master of fine detail’, represented a claimant in his appeal against an initial finding that he had been fundamentally dishonest in his claim following a road traffic accident. Jimmy Barber, ‘excellent at getting to the important issues in a case‘, specialises in claims involving accidents abroad, hearing loss, asthma, freezing injuries, and chronic pain, as well as in cases with complicating procedural issues.