Lucy is a Partner in the Specialist Liability team. She has worked with numerous Local Authority clients, social housing providers and their Insurers for almost 20 years.

Lucy specialises in social care and abuse matters having handled some of the most high profile, complex and emotive social care claims in recent years. Many have attracted multi-agency liability, media coverage and lesson-learning following IMR, SCR, child safeguarding practice review, domestic homicide review, OfSted intervention, Care Commission or central government intervention.

Lucy regularly advises in claims involving high profile grooming, familial abuse, failed foster care or adoption, ineffective child protection, abuse at the hands of care-givers, peer on peer abuse, seclusion and deprivations of liberty, neglect, breaches of human rights, vulnerable adults, deaths in care settings, and difficult breach of duty arguments.

Lucy has considerable experience of preparing clients named as PiPs for impending Inquests. Many of Lucy's inquest cases have engaged Article 2 HRA causing the Coroner to exercise the enhanced investigative duty. Lucy is well versed in evidence management from a social care perspective and works with social workers who are required to give evidence in very difficult circumstances, and with senior managers, to obtain evidence of reflection, learning and /or improvements when Regulation 28 risks materialise.

Lucy delivers KCSIE seminars to Schools and educational establishments, and advises them on their approach to pupil consent (Gillick competence), teacher/pupil abuse claims, 'peer on peer' abuse claims, SEN, failures to educate, lapses in safeguarding and inappropriate restraint claims.

Relevant experience includes;

• Lucy has played a key role in the claims management of two highly publicised and large-scale child sexual exploitation rings for Local Authority clients. One Local Authority Manager referred to her as 'her rock.'

• She has recently collaborated with others to seek transitional guidance from central government on the acute shortage of regulated accommodation provision for vulnerable young people.

• Lucy writes for ALARM, LocalGov.uk and Schools Week on a range of topics.

• Lucy is recognised by the Legal 500 as a Recommended Lawyer with a 'wealth of experience, well able to identify the relevant issues to minimise the client's exposure…'

• Lucy regularly speaks at local and national industry events.