Personal Injury Half-Day Conference 2023

This year's PI Conference will include speakers and topics such as:

Robert Milligan KC - Civil jury trials and fatal awards

The two most recent jury trials in fatal claims are Stanger v Flaws and Ronald v Perth and Kinross Council. Robert Milligan KC, who was the senior counsel for the pursuers in both cases, will compare the awards and look at the lessons to be learned when preparing for such cases.

Val Pitt (Horwich Farrelly) - That's incredible! A review of fraud in Scotland. 

Joanne Farrell (Keoghs) - A seminar on quantifying claims for future losses 

Kim Leslie (Digby Brown) - Vicarious liability- has the recent case law moved the law on?

Charles Hennessy - A seminar on a round up of this year’s PI decisions.

About the Speakers:

Robert Milligan KC called to the Bar in 1995 and took silk in 2009. He specialises in Personal Injury law and particularly historical abuse, catastrophic injuries and fatal claims. He also specialises in product liability and group proceedings. He is ranked as a leading silk in Chambers and Legal 500 and is a star individual for personal injuries in Chambers.   He has been involved in many of the important fatal claims of recent years, including Bellingham v Todd, Hamilton and anr v Ferguson Transport and anr, Young v McVean, Stanger v Flaws, Manson v Robb and Ronald v Perth and Kinross Council.

Kim  Leslie is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde and qualified in 1999. She joined Digby Brown in 2000.

Kim is a partner within the Edinburgh office and head of the Non-Accidental team. A team dedicated to representing those abused in childhood or otherwise deliberately harmed.

She has extensive experience of all types of personal injury work and Kim is both accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Personal Injury Law and is a Fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL).

She is also a member of the Ogden Working Party, was a Chair of the Civil Justice Committee for the Law Society (from 2009 - 2019) and is currently the Executive Director of Association of Child Abuse Lawyers (June 2020 - present).

As Chair of ‘Restoring the Balance of Justice’, Kim  lead a campaign involving national and international experts and campaigners aiming to overcome barriers to justice in Scotland for victims of stalking and harassment.

Kim is also a panel member of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers (ACAL) and was Highly Commended in the Scottish Law Awards 2022.

Val Pitt studied at Edinburgh University and qualified as a solicitor in 2008, having completed her traineeship with Simpson and Marwick. She joined HF Scotland in 2019 and has been a Partner since January 2023.

An Accredited Specialist in Personal Injury Law, Val has extensive experience of a breadth of work types, specialising in Defender Insurance litigation. She has significant advocacy experience and has secured decisions shaping the law on impecuniosity in credit hire claims in Scotland, expenses in actions where multiple Tenders were required and the disclosure of materials pertinent to the admissibility of expert evidence.  She has applied her advocacy skills in co-authoring a training programme delivered by her firm to trainees and solicitors.

Since joining HF, Val has expanded her expertise in counter-fraudulent claims and has successfully defended a number of cases against experienced solicitors and Counsel, some of which have attracted local and national press attention.

Having always had a passion for education of the solicitors of the future, Val previously taught postgraduate students at the University of Strathclyde.  She has been a member of the Education Committees of the Law Society of Scotland since 2019, and was appointed as Convenor in 2022.  Val is the Training Partner for HF and devised the firm’s development programme for trainees.

Val was the Chair of HF’s UK Charity Committee from 2019 – 2022 a role in which beyond giving back to worthwhile causes, she championed greater diversity and inclusion across the firm, including the formation of the Women at HF network.

Further Information to follow soon.