About the Organisers
The HAVS Symposium is organised by:
Claire Hodgson, Solicitor, BHP Law.Claire trained at Watson Burton, and was a member of the Claimant's steering Committee for the British Coal VWF litigation; she moved to Askews in 2004, where she had conduct of Kew v Bettamix. In 2009, she set up her own firm, CMH Solicitors. Her talk on "Preparing the Case" (2nd Symposium) is now to be found in Sweet & Maxwell's Occupational Illness Litigation (ed. Andrew Macdonald). she has 19 years experience of dealing with HAVS cases.
Simon Matthews, Associate, Crutes Law Firm- Simon has been defending HAVS cases for many years now, having worked at Jacksons and DLA Piper before recently returning to Newcastle. He has considerable recent success in defending claims for vibration induced CTS and Whole Body Vibration. He co-organised the 2nd Symposium in 2001. He was also an originating member of the Contractors Steering Committee for the British Coal VWF litigation.
George Proud FRCS, Consultant Vascular Surgeon
- George has been examining claimants in HAVS cases, instructed by both claimants and defendants, for many years. He has a national reputation in this field.
- Paul is a Newcastle based hand surgeon with a developing reputation in CTS cases in particular
George and Claire have co-organised all five symposia; Simon co-organised the 2nd, 4th & 5th. We were sorry to lose Tim Lees FRCS from the organising committee after the 3rd, (although we still keep plaguing him) but were very pleased to welcome Paul Stuart.
