Master of the Queen’s Bench Division
Amanda’s working career commenced as a manager in the National Health Service and she qualified as a member of the Institute of Health Services Management in the 1980’s. Subsequently she qualified as a solicitor and rose through the ranks to become partner in charge of Charles Russell’s personal injury and clinical negligence group. She joined the partnership of Irwin Mitchell in July 2010, based in their London office, with responsibility for growing a large, new team specialising in medical law and serious injury. In 2016 Amanda moved to niche injury specialist law firm, Hudgell Solicitors, where she served as their first CEO and during her tenure the firm was added to the Times Best 200 law firms list. During this time she also served as a Deputy Master in the Queen’s Bench Division (QBD). In 2021 Amanda received a Royal Warrant for appointment as a full-time Master in the QBD and was sworn in on 22nd April, being one of only a handful of women and only the 3rd solicitor to ever join the Masters’ corridor in its long history.
Amanda was president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers in 2008/2009 and has been an assessor for APIL’s specialist brain injury and clinical negligence accreditation schemes as well as a Law Society panel member of their personal injury and clinical negligence until 2021.
For a number of years Amanda was APIL “Rehab Champion” and was also a founding member and director of the UK Rehabilitation Council. She chaired the IUA/ABI review group updating the national Rehabilitation Code in 2015 and has been a member of the Serious Injury Guide Review Body for many years. She was presented with the “Outstanding Individual Achievement” award at the Rehabilitation First awards in 2016.
Amanda’s has served for a number of years as a governor of the Expert Witness Institute, responsible for their annual training conferences.
Amanda has been a longstanding and regular contributor at national conferences and in the press on medico-legal issues. She has assisted in drafting
numerous briefing papers to MP’s and the Lords as well as serving on the Civil Procedure Rules Committee for six years until 2015, a busy era due to implementation of the Jackson reforms. Subsequently she chaired the sub-committee responsible for drafting illustrative Rules for the Government consultation on introducing fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence and then represented the expert witness community when the Civil Justice Council (CJC) examined the same issue in 2019. Currently she chairs the CJC sub-committee responsible for reviewing the injury pre-action protocols.
Amanda is an emeritus member of FOCIS (Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors) and a liveryman of the City of London Solicitors’ Company.