Coroners and Inquests: How can Michelmores Help?

Representation

The clinical negligence team at Michelmores has significant experience of representing families at Inquests.  Alongside deaths arising from medical mistakes, members of the team have also acted in Inquests relating to fatal road traffic accidents, deaths at work, and deaths of prison inmates.  We have close ties with barristers who have a specialism in the law surrounding Coroners and Inquests (including some who have been heavily involved in the Shipman Inquiry).

If you are involved in an Inquest relating to the death of a loved-one, we will be very happy to discuss matters with you.  We recognise that, at a time of bereavement, legal issues may be the last thing on your mind, and we are confident that we can take care of such matters with sensitivity as well as efficiency.

Funding

The question of who pays for legal representation at an Inquest is one that is currently being debated at the highest level.  It has been the case, in recent years, that Public Funding ("Legal Aid") to cover the costs of legal representation at an Inquest is only available to relatives of the deceased under exceptional circumstances.  Under this system, the bereaved could normally only call on the services of appropriately skilled lawyers if they were able to pay for them out of their own pocket.

However, there is some hope that progress will be made in this area in the very near future.  The Courts have ordered that - especially where the death in question raises questions of significant public interest - the deceased's family should receive proper legal support at an Inquest, and the State should pay for it.  The Courts have noted that, if a public employee (a policeman or a doctor, for example) is a party to an Inquest, he or she will have proper legal support at the taxpayer's expense.  It is unfair, then, that such representation is generally unavailable to relatives of the deceased, unless they pay for it themselves.

The precise way in which the State chooses to make proper legal representation available to relatives of the deceased has yet to be worked out, but we are optimistic that, whatever the proposed solution is, it will enable wider access to the Inquest process.

Please get in touch if you need advice on this issue; we will be very keen to work with you to ensure that your voice gets heard in an appropriate way.