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Ciaran McCabe

Ciaran McCabe is a Partner and joint head of the National Serious Injury Department. The department was awarded Claimant Catastrophic Injury Team of the year at the PI Awards in 2021. He has specialised for over 20 years in assisting both adults and children, through England and Wales, who have sustained life changing injuries to the brain, spinal cord and limb loss.

During his career he has recovered over £250 million pounds of damages for clients who have sustained catastrophic injury. In particular he has developed a reputation both for succeeding in particularly challenging claims involving liability disputes and also negotiating outstanding settlements.

He has successfully represented clients in many life changing road traffic collisions as well as acting for pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. He also has broad experience in successfully concluding catastrophic injury claims in the workplace, overseas and in public places. He assembles litigations teams of the highest calibre including leading counsel and experts to ensure the maximum chances of success. He works closely with the Hugh James Court of Protection Department when individuals lack capacity.

Ciaran is a Spinal Injuries Association and Headway Accredited Solicitor. Ciaran is also a trustee of a charity supporting research into spinal cord injuries.  He is a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and he is actively involved in working with several charities who support the seriously injured.

Throughout his career, Ciaran’s key priorities have been to enable he effective rehabilitation of his clients. He aims to obtain substantial interim payments whenever possible as soon as possible. This enables his clients to access early rehabilitation, private care packages and where appropriate suitable accommodation.

Ciaran is acknowledged by the Legal Directories Chambers and Legal 500 as a leading national catastrophic injury lawyer –   according to impressed sources “Ciaran McCabe is very able and intelligent, vastly experienced at handling catastrophic personal injury matters and is lauded for his eagerness to tenaciously fight his client’s corner from start to finish”.

He deals with multimillion pound litigation and many of his cases are settled before trial, but he also has successfully succeeded for his clients at trial.

He has excellent connections with rehabilitation units throughout the UK and is an advocate of privately funded rehabilitation funded by insurers to benefit his clients.

Notable high value and complex cases in recent times include:

  • £15 million spinal cord (tetraplegia) and brain injury (instructed by Official Solicitor) [2022] (QB)
  • £7.5 million severe traumatic brain injury and polytrauma claim [2023] (KB)
  • £3.1 million severe traumatic brain injury and polytrauma claim [2023] (KB)
  • £2.5 million severe traumatic brain injury [2023] (KB)
  • £2.4 million severe traumatic brain injury [2019] (QB)
  • £2.25 million severe traumatic brain injury [2018] (QB)
  • £1.65 million severe traumatic brain injury settlement [2018] (QB)
  • Chowdhury v PZU SA [2021] EWHC 3085 (QB)
  • Griffiths v Secretary of State for Health [2015] EWHC 1264 (QB) spinal cord injury.
  • Hughes v Eastwell Manor [2015] (QB) – stroke following a beauty therapy treatment.
  • Runacres v Mills [2012] (QB) – severe brain injury to a city broker following a road traffic collision.

Ciaran joined Hugh James as a Partner in 2017 having previously been a partner in two other Top 100 law firms. He qualified in 1998 giving him over 25 years post qualification experience.

Work History

Ciaran joined Hugh James as a partner in 2017. He qualified in 1998, giving him 20 years post qualification experience.