Byrom Street Chambers, 12 Byrom Street, Manchester
Educated at Stonyhurst and Emmanuel College, Cambridge (MA in Classics), James was called to the Bar in 1987 and practised at 28 St John Street, Manchester until joining Byrom Street Chambers in January 2004. He was a Recorder of the Crown and County Courts (2003-2016) and Chairman of the Personal Injuries Bar Association (2010-2012). He is a qualified arbitrator and mediator, offering evaluative mediation in personal injuries and clinical negligence cases.
Specialising early in his career, James developed an extensive personal injury and clinical negligence practice as a junior. He was appointed in 2000, at the age of 35, as main Counsel to the Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry into organ retention at Alder Hey Hospital, following which he was recruited as senior junior, with a speaking role, into the PTSD Group Actions against the MoD. Shortly after returning to more routine practice, he moved to Byrom Street Chambers while the appointment of new Queen’s Counsel had been suspended; he was successful in 2006 when the competition was first renewed.
James has a mixed claimant and defendant clinical negligence/PI practice in Silk. On the losing side in Dunhill v Burgin , Baroness Hale said this of his performance (in the Peter Taylor Memorial Lecture 2014 to the PNBA): “There was much more to the defendant’s arguments than this, and they were made with conspicuous learning and skill.”
James has a special interest in CTG interpretation and birth injury claims, as well as neo-natal and infant meningitis cases. He has long advocated a principled and rigorous approach to the assessment of damages, publishing the definitive guide to pension loss calculation in the 1990s. He is the author of A PIBA Guide to Pension Loss Calculation (2020) and Serious Personal Injury Litigation Quantum Updated to 2024. He is an editor of the PNBA Facts and Figures and writes the chapters on Care and Pensions.
James is ranked as a Band 1 Silk under both the Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence sections of the Chambers and Partners Directory.
Married with 3 grown up sons, enjoying gardening and cooking, he still opens the batting at High Legh C.C. and keeps a small wine cellar.