“A career in law for me has always been about getting justice for vulnerable people. I am proud to end each day having helped to improve someone's life. Many of the clients I work with have been through the worst event of their lives, and I do whatever I can to support them.
I recently settled a complex claim on behalf of a little girl who had Erb’s Palsy.
During the birth, the child suffered shoulder dystocia which resulted in severe nerve damage. Despite several nerve graft procedures, the little girl was left with no functional use of her arm.
In her early years she experienced balance problems, which caused her to fall over. The nerve graft operations left her with considerable scarring on her arms. She was self-conscious to the point she refused to wear clothes that revealed her scarring.
The impact of her disability resulted in her developing post-traumatic stress disorder, which presented as selective mutism. Her family approached us to see how we could help to improve quality of life for their daughter.
In addition to running her case, I wanted to see what extra steps we could take to make her life better. I was able to find specialist coaches and opportunities for her to explore interests and hobbies she hadn’t tried before. We looked at the assistive technology needed so she could participate to the full; it opened up a brand new world for her. We also brought in a case manager to help take some of the stresses away from the family, and let them just be her parents.
Any family would naturally do everything in their power to support their child, but the care and devotion her parents showed was inspiring; from travelling across the country for treatments to learning specialist physiotherapy exercises.
A psychiatrist helped us identify and source a need for immediate counselling, which was so effective that earlier this year, the girl has begun to wear clothes she hadn’t been confident to in the past.
A key factor for me in this case was identifying the needs of the little girl as an individual. Most children want to experience as many hobbies and activities as possible. Not all of these will develop into long term hobbies or interests, but then that is the point of childhood.
With a severely injured child at the heart of this case, I worked tirelessly to secure one of the biggest settlements we’ve seen for this type of claim at Irwin Mitchell. It was wonderful to achieve such a good result in this case for a lovely family, and to make sure that their child can enjoy the rest of their childhood without being too held back by their disability. It’s important to really look at the individual and understand the family needs, wishes and feelings. Above all, we needed to do everything we could to protect the little girls childhood and redress the impact of her injury.”
Tom is Senior Associate in our London office who helps people claim compensation for a wide variety of medical negligence issues, including birth injuries such as Erb's Palsy and cerebral palsy.
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