Graham Maciver
Graham Maciver works primarily throughout the fields of public and administrative law, including principally judicial review, human rights and immigration law. Graham’s other areas of practice include commercial and regulatory law (directors disqualification and tax), personal injury and international law.
Graham has been a Standing Junior to the Advocate General for Scotland since 2012 and was appointed to the newly created post of Second Standing Junior to the Advocate General for Scotland in 2021, and now First Standing Junior in 2024.He has been on the Public International Law Panel to the Attorney General since 2014 and Equality and Human Rights Commission Panel of Counsel since 2019. Junior Counsel to Scottish Hospitals Inquiry since 2023.
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Isla Davie KC
Isla Davie’s practice covers a range of medical negligence, professional negligence, commercial law, property and personal injury disputes, in particular catastrophic injury. She is regularly instructed on behalf of insurers, public bodies, professional bodies and individuals. She is often asked to speak on medical negligence and property law.
Isla studied law at Edinburgh and Paris-Sud. She joined the Bar in 2004 after seven years’ experience as a solicitor with commercial firms and took silk in 2019. She practices in civil law, being regularly instructed in interdicts, debates, proofs, civil jury trials and Fatal Accident Inquiries.
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James McConnell KC
James McConnell KC has a practice that mainly focusses on clinical negligence. He is also frequently instructed in inquiries with a medical element. He acts for pursuers and defenders in roughly equal proportions. He is Band 1 ranked by Chambers and Partners in Clinical Negligence and by the Legal 500 in Personal Injury and Medical Negligence.
Cases:
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Jamie Dawson KC
Jamie Dawson KC called to the Bar in 2004 and took silk in 2020. He has a wide ranging civil practice involving both appearance and advisory work. He has experience of appearing in both the Inner and Outer House of the Court of Session, the High Court of Justiciary and sheriff courts as well as tribunals and public inquiries. The mainstay of his practice is medical and dental negligence cases (pursuer and defender) and public inquiries. He also works in the field of personal injury (pursuer and defender) and defamation and handles insurance and commercial disputes, trust and property cases.
Jamie was instructed as lead Counsel on behalf of the Scottish infected and affected core participants in the UK’s largest ever public inquiry at that time, the Infected Blood Inquiry. The final report was published in May 2024.
Jamie was appointed to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry legal team. He, along with 10 other KC’s, support Hugo Keith KC, Lead Counsel to the Inquiry, and Martin Smith, Solicitor to the Inquiry, with the preparation and delivery of the Inquiry’s investigative work. He lead Module 2A, Core UK decision-making and political governance – Scotland.
As a junior Counsel, he was recommended in legal directories for his expertise in clinical negligence and personal injury work for several years. Amongst the comments on his practice were the following:
• “Fantastic at dealing with complex medical evidence and technical details.” (Legal 500 (2020), personal injury and clinical negligence work, Band 1)
• “A committed advocate who has vast experience defending clinical negligence cases. His wide-ranging caseload spans such circumstances as birth injuries, dental malpractice and fatal accidents. He also has experience in mental health and cancer diagnosis cases.
Strengths: “He is very good at getting into the details in clinical negligence cases.”(Chambers & Partners (2020), clinical negligence work)
• Strengths: “He is very good at picking up on things and running with them.” “I would describe him as very proactive. He was very good in the case I was on and made a very positive contribution to its conclusion.” (Chambers & Partners (2017), personal injury work)
• “He’s good, thorough and professional.” (Chambers & Partners (2016), clinical negligence work)
• “He is extremely impressive and very helpful too.” (Chambers & Partners (2016), personal injury work)
• Expertise: “He’s very thorough and goes into a lot of depth; his advocacy skills are very good.” (Chambers & Partners (2014), personal injury work)
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Jamie Gardiner
Jamie Gardiner specialises in cases combining legal and financial analysis.
On the legal side, Jamie has broad experience across commercial disputes. He particularly enjoys technical points of contractual / statutory interpretation – and finding them in factually ‘messy’ cases. From 2005-2007 he practised as a Barrister in London, so is able to advise on questions of English law.
On the financial side, he likes spreadsheets, cross-examining accountants and insolvency practitioners, complex corporate structures, quantifying loss, valuing companies and interrogating financial statements.
Jamie developed these skills as a Business Consultant. From 2007 to 2015, he worked (latterly as Director) in Accenture’s Trading, Investment and Optimisation team. He led projects in the energy, financial services and beverages sectors. His clients included BP, British Airways, Diageo and a major bank.
Jamie has an interest in animal law. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Animal Law Foundation and is interested in finding ways to better enforce farm animal welfare legislation.
Selected cases:
(Where the names of parties have not appeared in published opinions, initials have been substituted)
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Jennifer Nicholson-White
Acting for both pursuers and defenders in a wide range of personal injury litigation, Jenny Nicholson-White has a particular interest and expertise in clinical negligence and is ranked as leading junior by both Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500 in personal injury and clinical negligence.
Her recent work includes complex cases involving brain injury in road traffic accidents, birth injury cases including cerebral palsy, amputations as a result of alleged clinical negligence, defending GPs in cases involving allegedly negligent loss of sight in a young man and loss of hearing in a young woman respectively, acting for families seeking damages for the loss of a loved one due to alleged negligence, acting for insurers to defend claims under the Damages (Scotland) Act 2011, representing dentists before Interim Orders Committees in advance of Fitness to Practice Hearings, acting for families in secondary victim claims arising out of alleged clinical negligence, representing nurses as instructed for the RCN, representing the SPS and Forestry and Land Scotland as instructed by the Scottish Government and acting for health boards in defence of various allegations of surgical error and delayed diagnosis.
In January 2022, Jenny was appointed a Standing Junior to the Scottish Government. In that capacity, she has acquired further experience in public law and been instructed in several cases raised in the Lands Tribunal of Scotland. In both the UK and Scottish Covid-19 Public Inquiries she is one of six junior Counsel, led by Geoff Mitchell K.C. representing the Scottish Ministers.
In August 2021, Jenny was appointed an ad hoc Advocate Depute and has experience in that capacity of prosecuting serious sexual offending in the High Court.
Jenny was shortlisted for Scottish Junior Advocate of the Year 2020 by the Legal 500
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