12KBW London Asbestos Seminar 2025

Patrick Kerr

Patrick is consistently ranked as a Leading Junior, Tier 1 in the Legal 500 and a Leading Junior, Band 1 in Chambers & Partners. The current editions describe him as “warm and approachable, and his attention to detail is first class. His advocacy is eloquent, innovative and charismatic” and “an outstanding barrister who is undoubtedly destined for the top”. Recent editions say he is “a superb advocate who is highly intelligent” and “definitely the counsel you want on your side”.

Patrick has particular expertise in mesothelioma claims, clinical negligence and sporting injuries.  Most of his claims involve catastrophic injuries.  He also has extensive experience in defending fraudulent claims.

He is a member of the Northern Irish Bar and has provided expert evidence on English and Welsh law for other jurisdictions.

Patrick also runs a charity which funds Research Fellowships at the Royal Marsden Hospital (lecure.org).

David Green

David is a leading personal injury and employment junior. He is the head of Chambers’ employment team.

"He is really impressive - smart and efficient" (Chambers & Partners (personal injury: industrial disease), 2025).

“David is simply outstanding” (Chambers & Partners (employment), 2025)

David is ranked as a leading junior for both personal injury and employment law, in both Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500.

In personal injury he specialises in occupational and environmental disease claims, including all aspects of asbestos disease; noise-induced hearing loss; and cases involving the armed forces. David is instructed in the Military Deafness Litigation, one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases of 2025.

In employment he appears regularly in the Employment Tribunal and the EAT in a variety of statutory employment cases.

He leads Chambers’ employment team, which is ranked as a leading group in both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500.

Cases include:

Minis Childcare Ltd v Hilton-Webb [2024] EAT 108: successful appeal concerning the relationship between indirect discrimination and the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees.

Barry v Ministry of Defence [2023] EWHC 459 (KB): military noise-induced hearing loss case with widespread implications for the quantum of earnings-related damages for disabled claimants.

Abbott v Ministry of Defence [2022] EWHC 1807 (QB): junior counsel for nearly 3,500 claimants for noise-induced hearing loss and/or tinnitus brought against the MOD.

Wokingham Borough Council v Arshad [2022] EWHC 2419 (KB): successful appeal on behalf of a local authority against claim for psychiatric damage, brought by a taxi driver after a mistake in the taxi licensing process.

John-Paul Swoboda KC

John-Paul specialises in Asbestos Litigation, Sports, International litigation, Serious injury, Aviation, Clinical Negligence, Professional Negligence and Inquests. He undertakes high value work appearing in the High Court and Appellate Courts. He enjoys working as part of a team. He won the Legal 500 Personal Injury Junior of the Year Award in 2023. John-Paul was elected joint Deputy Head of Chambers in July 2024. He took silk in 2025.

In relation to asbestos claims, he is instructed by most, if not all, well-regarded claimant firms with an established asbestos team. He is ranked in Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500. Recent reported cases include:

• Johnstone v Fawcett’s Garage (Newbury) Ltd [2023] EWHC 3010 (KB) (appeal listed in February 2025)
• Keegan v Independent Insurance Co Ltd [2022] EWHC 1992 (QB);
• Brooks v Zurich Insurance Plc [2022] EWHC 1170 (QB);
• Witham v Steve Hill Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1312 (led by Steven Snowden KC);
• Gregory v H J Haynes Ltd [2020] EWHC 911 (Ch);
• Helm v Kenyon & Sons Ltd v Somewatch Ltd [2019] EWHC 1108 (QB);
• Cary v Vauxhall Motors Ltd [2019] EWHC 238 (QB);
• Mark v Universal Coatings and Services Ltd v Barrier Ltd [2018] EWHC 3206 (QB);
• Stacey v Triplex Safety Glass Company Ltd [2017] EWHC 1945 (QB).

His private international law expertise spans jurisdiction (pre and post-Brexit), applicable law (pre and post-Brexit), forum non conveniens cases and service out of the jurisdiction in both injury and non-injury commercial work. John-Paul also has expertise in Aviation, having worked on cases arising from air disasters. He regularly appears in Package Holidays claims, Admiralty matters, Athens and Montreal Convention cases and clinical negligence cases with a foreign element. As a result of his Spanish language skills, John-Paul is often instructed in Spanish cases and has appeared as an expert in English law in the Spanish Courts. Recent reported cases include: Chouza v Martins & Ors [2021] EWHC 1669 (QB) (Spanish law); Haggerty-Garton v ICI [2021] EWHC 2924 (QB) (Scots law); Maddison v TUI [2023] EWHC (to be heard by the Court of Appeal). John-Paul is ranked in the Legal 500 for Travel Law including Jurisdictional issues.

John-Paul’s clinical negligence work is high value work often relating to birth injury, brain injury, spinal injury, amputation, other catastrophic outcomes and fatalities. He receives instructions from most ranked firms. He is ranked in the directories for his clinical negligence work. He enjoys the medical and scientific aspects of such litigation and works closely with his instructing solicitors and experts.

John-Paul won the Legal 500 Personal Injury Junior of the Year award in 2023 He undertakes all personal injury work including EL, PL and RTA cases. Reported cases include Irani v Duchon [2019] EWCA Civ 1846.

John-Paul has expertise and experience in professional negligence claims acting for claimants and defendants. He is often instructed in relation to claims relating to solicitors and barristers and also has experience of many other professions. He successfully represented the Claimant in the Court of Appeal in Witcomb v Keith Park Solicitors [2023] PNLR 20.

He practices Sports Law where he is able to bring his extensive Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence knowledge to bear on such matters. However, his practice is not restricted to injury related work; he accepts non-injury Sports work of a contractual or regulatory nature. He has received instructions relating to those in the English Premier League, for professional jockeys and for other professional sports people.

John-Paul acts for bereaved families, and occasionally acts for other interested parties, at Inquests. John-Paul has particular interest and expertise in Article 2 ECHR enhanced Inquests. He has acted in high profile Inquests such as the Inquest touching the death of Toni Speck (a death in police custody); the Inquest touching the death of Graham Coker (a death following oesophageal cancer surgery where their department was subsequently shut down); the Inquest touching the death of Jodie White-Charles where a young mother died of sickle cell complications as a result of Trust failures.

Michael Brace

Michael’s expertise in industrial disease litigation is reflected in the fact that he has been ranked nationally in such field by “Chambers UK – A Client’s Guide to the Legal Profession” every year and in the “Legal 500” has been ranked every year since 2016.

Michael regularly appears in claims in the specialist asbestos list dealing with issues of liability, causation, limitation and quantum.

Michael regularly undertakes seminars/presentations on a national basis both for Chambers and clients.  Recent examples of his presentations are:

• “Issues arising on death” in the context of asbestos litigation – Chambers Asbestos conference – Manchester /May 2023
• “Asbestos in Schools” – event organised by asbestos victims charity – Liverpool / March 2023

He is a contributor to “Asbestos: Law & Litigation”, Sweet & Maxwell, 1^st and 2^nd Edition (Chapter; Practice & procedure) and to Kemp & Kemp: Personal Injury, Law, Practice & Procedure, Sweet & Maxwell (Chapter 34 Industrial Diseases).

Whilst Michael’s asbestos practice is Claimant based,  in relation to other categories of industrial disease claims he is regularly instructed by leading Defence firms.

In relation to non-asbestos related injuries Michael has recently been involved for insurers in claims involving:

• “obliterative bronchiolitis” as a result of exposure to food colouring chemicals;
• Hypersensitivity pneumonits as a result of exposure to mould;
• Work related upper limb disorder as a result of work in a laboratory.  Defending linked claims on behalf of 3 separate claimants.

Michael Rawlinson KC

Michael’s principal areas of practice are claims in which exposure to noxious substances are alleged to have led to long-term adverse health effects. He is instructed by victims, exposers and their insurers.

Since such claims often involve the development of cancer many years after exposure, much of his instruction requires the marshaling and presentation of very large quantities of historical documents evidencing or negativing either the fact of exposure or the guilty knowledge relating to it.

He works extensively with lawyers from other common law jurisdictions. Under this general description fall specific areas of litigation: occupational exposure to asbestos/other carcinogens and exposure to manufactured products made available to the public.

In addition he accepts a significant number of instructions each year on behalf of service personnel (or their survivors) where injury arises from service life. He is often instructed to appear at the initial fact-finding Inquest and thereafter within subsequent civil litigation. He is regularly instructed in respect of air crashes (fixed and rotary wing) and other aspects of aviation health and safety. More generally, Michael is instructed by insurers where a wider strategic interest arises out of specific litigation. He considers to be a core part of his work to regularly give talks seeking to signpost where the law of causation appears to be heading. He accepts instructions from ‘both sides’ in catastrophic head and spinal injury.

Notwithstanding the advent of 0% CFA/QOCS claims he is not risk averse where legally interesting or otherwise significant issues arise. Recent work has required him to provide advocacy arising from such diverse topics as the nature of the UK’s level of control over Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus, the system of International aviation regulation operating within the UK, the alleged effect of environmental exposure to organophosphates and the historical behaviour of manufacturers of asbestos products within the UK market.

When instructed to lead a team, he always tries to foster a collegiate approach to the litigation because he firmly believes that helps the entire team to provide maximum value to the client.

Ivan Bowley

Ivan Bowley specialises in industrial disease and serious personal injury, acting on behalf of claimants. For many years he has been one of the leading juniors at the Bar for industrial disease litigation.

Ivan also practices at Lincoln House Chambers in Manchester and has regularly been listed in Chambers and Partners Band 1 for personal injury on the Northern Circuit and as a leading practitioner in the Legal 500. He is listed in Band 1 of the Chambers and Partners’ list “Personal Injury: Industrial Disease – All Circuits”.

Cressida Mawdesley-Thomas

Cressida specialises in all aspects of Personal Injury law. She has a thorough and collaborative approach and is recognised by The Legal 500 as a Rising Star who “has already amassed an extremely impressive caseload, far beyond that of many barristers much more senior”.

In disease litigation Cressida acts for Claimants suffering from mesothelioma, lung cancer, diffuse pleural thickening and asbestosis. She is also experienced in VWF/ HAVS claims. She regularly appears in the Masters’ corridor and is well versed in limitation arguments and complex issues of causation. As second junior in Mather v MOD she helped obtain a settlement of over £3 million for a former RAF painter & finisher who developed MS following exposure to organic solvents in breach of the COSHH Regulations.

Cressida has particular interest in equine claims brought under The Animals Act 1971.  She is currently junior counsel in a high value, complex CRPS claim following a military riding accident. Cressida is adept at drafting schedules of loss in cases involving the loss of a military career.

In clinical negligence Cressida has experience in a range of different cases, including delayed diagnosis, as well as unnecessary and negligent surgery. This compliments her coronial practice where she is instructed in inquests involving multiple expert jurisdictions. She successfully obtained a regulation 28 prevention of future death report in a case arising out of the police’s treatment of head injuries and questioned experts in pathology, neuropathology, and toxicology.

Cressida is adept at handling complex motor insurance indemnity points. She successfully acted as Junior Counsel for the Second Defendant in Covea Insurance Plc v Greenaway [2021] 3 WLUK 379, considering the meaning of the ‘stolen or unlawfully taken’ exception under s. 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Greenaway was the first case to practically consider how the domestic court is to interpret retained EU law under section 6(3) of the EU Withdrawal Act 2018. Unled she successfully acted for the Second Defendant in Kelec v (1) Kotwal (2) Nelson Insurance (HHJ Dight CBE, central London County Court, 18 August 2022). The case concerned the limits of a direct action under The European Communities (Rights against Insurers) Regulations 2002 (‘the 2002 Regulations’).

Cressida acts and advises in costs litigation, including detailed assessment hearings, where she is an effective advocate. She co-edits 12 King’s Bench Walk’s Costs blog with Deputy Costs Judge Andrew Roy.

Prior to coming to the Bar Cressida worked at a top American investment bank. She is highly numerate and drafts living and fatal schedules of loss beyond her year of call.