United Kingdom - Scotland • Insurance

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Personal injury: pursuer

Digby Brown LLP

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With an impressive track record and significant experience acting for claimants, Digby Brown LLP handles the gamut of personal injury claims. The practice fields a large and experienced team across seven offices throughout Scotland and includes several accredited personal injury specialists. In Edinburgh, the ‘superb’ Gordon Dalyell has a broad practice that includes fatal claims and claims for miscarriages of justice, while Kim Leslie is frequently instructed to act on historic institutional abuse claims. In Glasgow, the core team includes Chris Stewart and Moira Kay, who handle catastrophic and serious injury claims, as well as Fraser Simpson, who takes point on industrial disease matters. Mark Gibson, Stuart Barton and Fraser Oliver are other key members of the team.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘Exceptional in ensuring access to justice for all.’

  • ‘Gordon Dalyell has a truly altruistic attitude to justice. An exceptional lawyer with an interest in every claim, and he applies his skills for the benefit of every client and also works collaboratively with his peers to advance the cause of justice in our society. He is a superb lawyer, who represents everything that a lawyer should be - a person of high integrity, skill, knowledge and experience, but all used with great humanity and humility.’

  • ‘Kim Leslie is the partner leading the historic abuse team. She is an exceptional individual - determined, focused, tenacious and extremely capable. She always does the best for the client and has a marvellous team. Kim goes above and beyond for the client and is a great communicator. Mark Gibson heads the foreign and travel department. He too is excellent. He is very capable, great with clients and focused on their best interests. Moira Kay is the partner leading the catastrophic injury team. There is not much that this team doesn't know about catastrophic injury cases. Moira is very well prepared, very capable and great with clients.’

  • ‘The firm has experienced and very able lawyers from top to bottom. All cases are properly prepared, which leads to excellent results for clients. All work produced by the firm consistently meets a high standard. The number, quality and value of the cases pursued by the firm is very impressive.’

  • ‘Moira Kay demonstrates a quiet confidence and competence, which leads to excellent results for her clients. She is a pleasure to work with. Kim Leslie is a leading historic abuse claims lawyer for pursuers. She is tenacious and very well informed and drives difficult cases to a successful conclusion. Together with Stuart Barton, they are all very experienced PI lawyers and are among the foremost practitioners in this field in Scotland.’

  • ‘Digby Brown's pursuer practice is of a universally high standard.’

  • ‘Far and away the best firm for personal injury work for pursuers. A large team of highly trained lawyers - not just paralegals - using a very efficient system that ensures all cases are properly investigated.’

  • ‘The consistency of the quality of the solicitors at Digby Brown is one of the most impressive features of the firm. However, the work Kim Leslie does for victims of historic abuse deserves special mention.’

Key clients

  • Spinal Injuries Scotland
  • Headway
  • Asbestos Action and Clydebank Asbestos Group
  • Brake
  • Members of the Compensate Personal Injury Network

Work highlights

  • Acted on a fatal road traffic action, and secured damages for the sole survivor of the car crash.
  • Acted on a serious workplace injury case that settled for 45 times the original offer. Acted for a joiner, who suffered a brain injury after falling through a roof while fitting a Velux window. The defenders tried to dismiss the action with an initial offer of £20k; the case settled for £900k.

Lawyers

Leading individuals

Gordon Dalyell

Gordon Dalyell

Digby Brown LLP

Gordon Dalyell qualified as a solicitor in 1990, and joined Digby Brown, as a partner, in 1998. He heads up the Network Department. He has wide experience in dealing with many areas of personal injury, including accidents at work, and road traffic accidents, as well as fatal accident claims and claims for miscarriages of justice. Gordon obtained rights of audience as a Solicitor-Advocate (civil) in 2003. He has been accredited as a specialist in Personal Injury Law by the Law Society of Scotland. He is a Fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and has been the Executive Committee member for Scotland since 2010. He was President of the Association for 2019 - 2020, and is the current Treasurer. He has given evidence, on behalf of the Association, to the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster, and to the Justice, and Economy, Energy, and Fair Work Committees at Holyrood. He has been involved in responding to consultations from, and engaging with, government at both UK and Scottish level.

Mark Gibson

Mark Gibson

Digby Brown LLP

Mark graduated from Glasgow University in 2002 with an LLB (Hons) degree with Spanish Language. He is now a Partner based in Digby Brown's Glasgow and Edinburgh offices. He is the head of Digby Brown's Travel and Product Liability litigation teams. He specialises in product liability, personal injury litigation with a foreign element, aviation, offshore accidents, employers’ liability, road traffic and occupier's liability. He is very experienced in pursuing damages for the relatives of fatal accident victims and has represented families at several Fatal Accident Inquiries. Mark has a particular interest and specialism in product liability, food product liability and defective medical product claims. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Personal Injury Law. He is accredited as a Senior Litigator by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and is the only APIL accredited Accident and Illnesses Abroad Specialist in Scotland. Mark is a Board Member of the Pan European Organisation of Personal Injury Lawyers (PEOPIL) and is a former Revitalization Governor of the American Association for Justice. He regularly delivers legal education seminars to other members of the profession. He spent a year studying at the University of Granada and has previously worked for law firms in Australia and Hong Kong. Mark is also a former tutor of private, company, commercial and mercantile law at the University of Glasgow. He is a former director of a charitable company limited by guarantee.

Chris Stewart

Digby Brown LLP

Chris is a partner in the Serious Injury department. He qualified as a solicitor and notary public in 2000 and became a solicitor advocate (civil) in 2006. He has extended rights of audience in the Court of Session, House of Lords and Privy Council. Chris has considerable experience in personal injury (employers liability and RTA) in both the Sheriff Court and Court of Session. He is a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL); and of the Society of Solicitor Advocates. Under Chris' leadership the Serious Injury department also won the Catastrophic Injury Team of the Year title at the 2020 UK Personal Injury Awards and the Litigation Team of the Year prize at the 2021 Scottish Legal Awards.

Other key lawyers

Fraser Oliver, Brian Castle, Mark Gibson, Gordon Dalyell, Chris Stewart, Fraser Simpson, Kim Leslie, Dawn McCafferty, Stuart Barton, Moira Kay

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