Nicola Mooney

Clinical Negligence/Personal injury

Email: nicola.mooney@mwsolicitors.co.uk Tel: 01273 254008

Nicola Mooney qualified as a solicitor in 1985 and is the Head of the Clinical Negligence and Personal Injury department.  She has dealt predominantly with clinical negligence claims since 1995, becoming a member of the Law Society’s Clinical Negligence Panel in January 1999.

Before joining McMillan Williams in July 2009, Nicola was a partner at two well respected clinical negligence practices, Hodge Jones & Allen (where she headed up the clinical negligence team) and Thompson Snell & Passmore.  

Nicola is currently handling a number of complex claims that are predominantly on behalf of children who have suffered brain injury at birth or in the neonatal period.  She has a particular expertise in kernicterus cases where brain damage is caused by mismanagement of neonatal jaundice.  However, Nicola continues to act for both children and adults who have been injured as a result of other forms of clinical negligence.  Her experience includes spinal injury claims and claims arising from different surgical procedures.

Nicola is very aware of being an advocate for her clients in the broadest sense.  Very often, the injured person or his or her family are hit especially hard by a medical accident and do not know where to turn for financial help or for practical and emotional support or even for medical and rehabilitative treatment that is desperately needed.  Nicola considers it to be an important part of her role as a clinical negligence solicitor to use her extensive experience to help her clients in practical ways throughout a claim.

Nicola has achieved excellent results for her clients.  Her cases include:-

  • December 2011: award made in a cerebral palsy claim of £2,350,000 together with annual payments for care starting at £31,000 (while the Claimant still lives with his parents) and rising to £120,000 in 2032 and £141,000 per annum thereafter. (LS –v- Whipps Cross University Hospitals NHS Trust).
  • October 2011: award made in a cerebral palsy case of a capital sum of £2,350,000 together with annual payments for care of £152,500. (APD –v- South East Coast SHA)
  • March 2011: securing an award for a child damaged by a failure to treat neonatal jaundice with damages in excess of £5m (MDS –v- South London Healthcare NHS Trust).  (Lump sum awarded of £2,200,000 together with annual payments of £55,000 per annum initially rising to £115,000 per annum from age 19).
  • 2010: securing an award of £120,000 for a client who had received negligent treatment affecting her fertility which included the costs of seeking to have a family through a surrogacy agreement (McCallum –v- East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust).
  • In 2010 securing one of the highest awards there have been for a case of Erb’s Palsy for a 14 year old who suffered damage to the nerves in his right arm at birth in the sum of £500,000 (Blackford –v- Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust).
  • In 2008, a cerebral palsy claim where throughout there was no admission of liability but which was settled for a lump sum of £1.5m together with annual payments of £60,000 initially and £140,000 from age 19 (Tonna –v- Bart’s & The London NHS Trust).
  • Also in 2008 – a spinal cord injury case, a case complicated by the fact that the claimant already had severe learning difficulties as a result of Downs Syndrome.   This claim settled for a lump sum payment of just over £1m together with annual payments of £228,000, index linked to Government statistics on the level of carers wages.

Nicola has been the Secretary to the Child Injury Special Interest Group of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and also sits as a member of the Legal Services Commission’s Special Cases Unit Funding Review Committee.

Nicola can be contacted on 01273 254008 or email nicola.mooney@mwsolicitors.co.uk