Matthew White - Personal Injury

Matthew is a specialist personal injury barrister who deals with all aspects of personal injury litigation, acting for both claimants and defendants. He aims for a roughly equal split between claimant and defendant work, taking the view that it makes for a more rounded and better lawyer to have insight into the thinking of the opponent.

With over 25 years’ experience, he has considerable expertise in highway law, industrial diseases (particularly asbestos), pain litigation, and inquests. He also deals with the more routine employers’ liability, public liability and road traffic claims. He has been described by clients as “forensically thorough” with “fantastic attention to detail.”

Matthew spent 20 years on the Attorney General’s panel of counsel to the Crown, including being on the A-panel of most senior counsel since that system was introduced outside of London, therefore trusted to deal with the most complex government cases. He did not re-apply to the panel having become Head of Chambers in April 2022.

He regularly advises and represents clients in catastrophic injury claims, including in particular traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, and serious orthopaedic or amputation cases.

Matthew handles the full range of industrial disease cases from mesothelioma and asbestos related claims to other respiratory diseases, cancers, noise induced hearing loss, work-related upper limb disorders, dermatitis and occupational stress, including claims where there is crossover between personal injury and employment law.

He has a particular interest and expertise in matters of highway law and is “go to“ counsel for a number of local authorities in relation to the questions of when a way is a highway, when a highway is a highway maintainable at public expense, and the effect that these issues have on duty and standard of care.

Matthew enjoys common law claims, and occasionally deals with some of the more obscure areas of law that arise infrequently.

He routinely advises on and drafts complicated schedules of loss.

He has a particular specialism in dealing with claims for significant pension loss, whether in money purchase, final salary, or career average pension scheme situations, or, as is usual, a mixture of schemes. He is co-author of the Personal Injury Bar Association Guide to Pension Loss Calculation (Rowley QC & White, 2020) (extract here), the chapter in Facts & Figures on pension loss, and he lectures on the topic. He has put a video explanation of the calculation of pension loss in personal injury claims here.

Immediately after the release of the 8th edition of the Ogden tables he presented live online talks on how to use the new additional tables. They were recorded and are now online here.

Matthew has prepared a special damages calculator, which can be used from our website here. It allows for all changes in the special account rate over time. Read more here.