Richard Barr

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Practice Areas:

Clinical Negligence

Memberships: 

Richard is a Senior Litigator and Accredited Clinical Negligence Specialist with the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). He served on the Law Society Council for more than a dozen years and was also on the Executive Committee of APIL.

 

Legal Experience: 

Richard is experienced in many areas of the law, but specialises in clinical negligence. He has been involved in running a number of national cases including: Opren (a painkiller associated with a number of deaths and serious injuries), Gulf War Illness, Organophosphate Sheep Dips, and vaccine claims.

Richard has a reputation for being user-friendly. As a writer and broadcaster, he is keen to make the law understandable and accessible to people who are unfamiliar with legal terminology. He tells his clients that if they don't understand what he is saying, it is his fault not theirs! He likes to work with his clients to achieve the best possible outcome.

He deals with most kinds of medical case and has obtained substantial compensation for clients who have been seriously injured by medical negligence. He lives and works in North Norfolk and he is happy to visit clients at their homes (subject of course to Covid restrictions) but he also takes on cases outside Norfolk and Suffolk.

He works with medical experts to assess cases and also has support from members of his immediate family (who include: a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon, a consultant neurologist, an advanced nurse practitioner and a medico-legal researcher).

His stepdaughter was seriously injured more than 35 years ago as a result of medical negligence when she was just four years old (she remains severely disabled). Richard shares her care on a daily basis, so he is familiar with the consequences of negligence and how it can affect people every day of their lives. He also knows personally what it is like to battle for the support that disabled people need, and which is often hard to obtain.

Interests: 

In his spare time he is a freelance writer and a keen photographer (you can find his photos on Instagram). He has written two books for the Consumer’s Association and a large section of the 3rd edition of the Penguin Guide to the Law. He wrote a light hearted column (“Tales from Practice”) for the Solicitors Journal for many years. A compilation of his stories has now been published as a book (The Savage Poodle, available on Amazon either in paper back or in extended form as a Kindle e-book) He also writes about non-legal matters (including his pets, his efforts at DIY & gardening and many other topics)

For nearly 40 years he appeared regularly live on BBC Radio Norfolk as their ‘legal eagle.’ He now has his own programme on Poppyland Community Radio.