Judith Leach

Judith was called to the Bar in 1994 and is based at the Withy King Oxford office. Since qualifying as a Barrister, Judith has practiced almost exclusively in health law and is a highly experienced clinical negligence lawyer. Although having a broad range of cases dealing with a variety of medical and nursing areas, Judith’s main areas of interest include neurological/brain injury cases, (particularly stroke cases), complex surgical cases, cardiac injuries, and catastrophic injury including birth injury claims.

Judith also has expertise and a particular interest in coronial law and regularly represents the deceased’s family at Inquests.

As a trained advocate Judith appears in court regularly on not only her own cases but also assists her colleagues with applications before the Judge.

Prior to becoming a lawyer Judith was a senior intensive care sister and air ambulance retrieval nurse looking after a wide variety of patients including those following cardiac surgery and neurosurgery, patients with liver failure and acute trauma patients. Judith also trained and practised as a midwife. This background knowledge greatly assists in understanding and analysing medical issues and is a valuable resource for the department.

Judith has also worked as in–house Barrister for a large UK NHS Trust. As such she has an invaluable insight and knowledge of not only the NHS but also health care providers’ internal systems and practices.

Judith is also a trained mediator and is a member of the following organizations:

Association for victims of medical Accidents
Association of Personal Injury Lawyers
Inquest Charity Lawyers Group
Oxford Medico Legal Society (Committee member and previous Secretary)
Personal Injury Bar Association
Royal College of Nursing

Judith has a very high success rate in obtaining damages on behalf of her clients. She not only works hard to obtain compensation for her clients but also strives to ensure lessons have been learned and changes made by the organization in question so similar injuries can be avoided in future. One of her successful cases is now used anonymously as a teaching aid by a large NHS Trust to prevent similar injuries.