Clerking team

Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw

Senior Clerk – Civil, Commercial & Employment Clerk

Martin Craggs

Assistant Senior Clerk

Jennifer Carr

Civil Clerk

Matthew Smith

Civil Clerk

Amie Finch

Junior Civil Clerk

Cressida is a specialist junior civil practitioner with a particular focus on personal injury, clinical negligence and credit hire disputes.

Cressida accepted tenancy at St John’s Buildings in October 2022 following successful completion of her pupillage under the supervision of William Poole.

Cressida has experience of MOJ Stage 3 hearings, small claims, fast track trials, conferences and interlocutory hearings. She accepts instructions to undertake all advisory and advocacy work in the OIC, MOJ Portal, Small Claims Track, Fast Track and Multi-Track including all final hearings.

Personal injury

Cressida accepts instructions in all areas of personal injury, regularly providing written advices on liability and quantum, and has experience of drafting statements of case in a wide range of personal injury and clinical negligence disputes. She has been instructed to advise in newly-emerging areas of litigation, such as cases of injury sustained while the claimant was unlawfully riding an e-scooter.

Cressida has a strong practice in advising in road traffic accident cases as to quantum following the introduction of the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021, and she prides herself on her ability to turn papers around promptly.

Clinical negligence

Cressida welcomes instructions to advise and draft pleadings in clinical negligence matters. Cressida’s meticulous focus on detail makes her particularly good at reviewing medical records.

She has previously assisted with drafting pleadings and schedules of loss in medical and dental negligence claims, and is keen to grow her practice in this area.

Fraud

Cressida has a busy trial practice and is regularly in demand to represent clients in trials all over the country. She has successfully defended several road traffic claims, involving liability and credit hire disputes, on behalf of insurers. Cressida has successfully argued that even though the Defendant insurer had accepted liability for a road traffic accident, the Claimant was not entitled to recover any costs because the Defendant had made a Copley v Lawn-compliant intervention offer which the Claimant had rejected. Cressida has also used effective cross-examination of claimants in credit hire cases on a number of occasions to successfully argue for dismissal of such claims due to unenforceability of the hire agreement.

Cressida is very alert to cases where the identity of a party has a bearing on the correct measure of loss. In a recent claim for basic hire in respect of which the Defendant had admitted liability, she was nevertheless able to get the claim dismissed because the claimant was a limited company and the damaged vehicle was a profit-earning chattel, but no evidence of avoided loss of profits had been disclosed by the claimant.

Cressida enjoys dealing with unusual legal and procedural problems, including cases that give rise to issues of defective service or abuse of process arguments, and has been instructed to advise on the merits of applying for strike-out on abuse of process grounds.  Cressida recently used a successful res judicata argument to secure a one-third deduction from damages awarded following a road accident, where the claim arose from the same circumstances as a previous claim in which liability had been decided by consent, but was brought by a different claimant against the same defendant. Cressida is able to deal with such problems sensitively where required, as in a recent case where she successfully argued that the claim was a nullity due to having been issued in the name of a deceased person.

Education

  • BPTC, Very Competent, University of Law Leeds (2019)
  • LLM, Distinction, University of Law Leeds (2019)
  • LLB (Hons), 2:1, University of Durham (2018)

Memberships

  • Northern Circuit
  • Personal Injury Bar Association
  • The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn

Scholarships

  • Lincoln’s Inn: Droop BPTC Scholarship (2018)