Inquests

Eversheds Sutherland has a strong, national team with decades of experience in handling inquests for both private and public sector clients, as well as individuals. The team sits cross-practice group, with 29 highly experienced lawyers drawn from the firm’s health and safety and public inquiry teams, including Partner Sarah Valentine, who sits as an Assistant Coroner.

The team regularly acts for clients as Interested Persons and witnesses, as well as taking on the role of Solicitors to the Inquest in complex, high-profile or Judge-led inquests. Many of the inquests have followed catastrophic incidents, workplace deaths, deaths in care homes or at educational institutions, or deaths involving the police. The team is trained in trauma-informed investigations and witness management, which is central to handling fatalities in tragic and complex circumstances.

Also ranked in Band 1 for Health & Safety and Public Inquiry work, the team can handle inquests alongside criminal/regulatory proceedings, and acting on inquests which convert to public inquiries.

Our experience includes handling manslaughter investigations and defence work following prosecution in multiple-fatality cases, as well as acting as Solicitors to the Inquiry or on behalf of Core Participants in most recent high-profile public inquiries (including the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, the Angiolini Inquiry) and Independent Inquiries into Afghanistan and Telford Child Sexual Exploitation.