John McQuater

Practice Areas

John is a director of Switalskis Solicitors Limited where he is joint head of personal injury and a member of the complex injury team.

Career

Qualified as a solicitor in 1983, having received the degree of LLB in 1979. Awarded the degree of LLM in Advanced Litigation and Dispute Resolution in 2007.

Received the APIL Newcomer Trainer of the Year award in 2001 and in 2011 was named Eclipse Proclaim Claimant PI Lawyer of the Year. Shortlisted in the Yorkshire Legal Awards for Partner of the Year in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022 and also Yorkshire Lawyer of the Year in 2018 and 2022.

Past president of the Doncaster and District Law Society and a past president of the Yorkshire Union of Law Societies.

Professional Memberships

APIL Accredited, member of the Law Society Clinical Negligence Accreditation Scheme and a member of the Law Society Personal Injury Accreditation Scheme (as well as being an assessor for that scheme).

Member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, with accredited status as a Senior Fellow.

Elected to the APIL Executive Committee in 2005, APIL President from 2009 to 2010, re-elected to the Executive Committee in 2012, became APIL Secretary in 2016 and re-elected as APIL President in 2022.

Member of the Forum of Complex Injury Solicitors, the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association, the Law Management Section of the Law Society, the South Yorkshire Medico-Legal Society and the Solicitors’ Association of Higher Court Advocates.

John was a member of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee from 2019 and has been on the Law Society Civil Justice Committee from 2020.

Publications

Author of ‘Model Letters for Personal Injury Lawyers’ and the ‘APIL Guide to Personal Injury Claims Procedure’. Contributor to the APIL Guide to Clinical Negligence, the APIL Personal Injury Law, Practice and Precedents and the 5th and 6th Editions of Medical Negligence by Michael Jones.

Articles published in the Journal of Personal Injury Law, the Solicitors Journal, the New Law Journal, the Legal Executive Journal, Modern Claims Magazine, Bone & Joint 360 and The Times.

Deputy Case Digest Editor, and on the editorial board, of the Journal of Personal Injury Law (published by Thomson Reuters).

Work Highlights

John has been involved in a number of reported cases, directly or indirectly, over many years including:

Gibbons v Rotherham Doncaster & South Humber NHS Foundation Trust [2019] 6 WLUK 677

Astbury v Manchester Airport Holdings [2019] 11 WLUK 247

Faulkner v Secretary of State, Business and Industrial Strategy [2020] EWHC 296 (QB)

Seabrook v Adam [2021] EWCA Civ 382

Doyle v M & D Foundations & Building Services Limited [2022] EWCA Civ 927

University Hospitals of Derby & Burton NHS Foundation Trust v Harrison [2022] EWCA Civ 1660 (on behalf of APIL)

John represented a 26-year-old, who suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis, feet and wrist after falling almost eight metres to the ground. John secured £500,000 for the contractor.