Gerard McDermott

Gerard McDermott QC practises from England. He is based in London and Manchester, with associated offices in Abu Dhabi and New York. His main areas of practice are Personal Injury and Employment Law at all levels, although he maintains a diverse practice across the Common Law and Commercial fields.

Gerard was called as a Barrister in England and Wales in 1978 and was made Queen's Counsel in 1999. He has been admitted as Attorney-at-Law in New York for nearly 20 years.

Personal Injury

Gerard acts for both Claimants and Defendants. He represents clients with a whole range of injuries arising from medical malpractice, product defects or road traffic accidents. Much of his caseload involves catastrophic personal injury such as spinal cord injury or brain injury.

He has a very busy trial practice across the United Kingdom, generally in the High Court, but has also recently taken cases to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court as well as reaching impressive out of court settlements through negotiation. An increasing number of his cases have a cross border element to them, with particular emphasis on US issues, but also with cases that have involved Europe and the Middle East.

Gerard also has experience in Inquests and Inquiries, having represented an RAF Pilot during the Inquest into a 2007 Puma crash and having been Lead Counsel for the Health Authority in the high profile Inquiry into the numerous deaths of patients under the care of Dr Harold Shipman.

The influential directory, Chambers and Partners UK 2016, describes Gerard McDermott QC as "a great leader who has excellent overall judgement on a case" and in foreign cases is "nothing short of excellent". Interviewees were particularly effusive in describing him as "a very high-calibre practitioner, who fights very hard for his clients", applauding the way that he "lives and breathes the case, will immerse himself in it and has all the facts at his fingertips".

Employment Law

Gerard undertakes cases in all aspects of labor law including equal pay, dismissal, redundancy and discrimination cases. Again he addresses cases which present cross-border issues and has considerable experience in the European issues in this area including TUPE and Working Time Regulations.

Chambers and Partners UK 2010 describe him as, "an unsung star, who not only takes on the full range of employment cases, including discrimination, unfair dismissal and redundancy claims, but also has considerable knowledge of employment issues that touch upon European law."

Other Professional Achievements

Gerard is a former President of the American Counsel Association, former Leader of the European Circuit of the Bar and a long time active member of the American Bar Association and in particular the Section of Litigation.

He is authorised to sit as a Deputy High Court Judge in the Queen's Bench Division.

Gerard is frequently invited to lecture on his areas of specialism, both in the UK and abroad. Most recently he has travelled overseas to give talks to the International Association of Defense Counsel on Civil Litigation Costs in the UK in Paris in September 2009 and to the European Circuit of the Bar on the new European regulation, Rome II, in Warsaw in October 2009.