William Chapman is an experienced barrister with a broad common law practice, principally in personal injury, clinical negligence and historic sex abuse claims, but also in employment and commercial cases where his broad experience counts.
He is ranked as a leading junior in the Legal 500 for personal injury. His early years in practice provided extensive experience in the Crown Court providing him with the advocacy skills to match the demands of complex litigation.
Prior to coming to the Bar William practiced as an economist. He has written commercial software. He is proficient in C++, javascript and Visual Basic. He works almost exclusively from digital documentation and prefers his briefs to arrive that way. As a result he is extremely efficient in handling and presenting large sets of papers.
William is acting for a number of high-profile claimants arising out of the child sexual exploitation scandal in Rotherham.
He is acting for core participant complainants in the Roman Catholic module of the Independent inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (The Jay Inquiry).
William is qualified to accept instructions directly from clients and is registered under the Bar Council’s Public Access Scheme, meaning that members of the public who seek specialist advice can come direct to him. In addition, he welcomes instructions from solicitors, in-house law departments, qualified foreign lawyers, and clients licensed by the Bar Council to give instructions direct to barristers under the Bar Council’s Licensed Access Scheme. For more information please visit our Direct Access page here.