Lawyer in the News.Who? David Body, 45-year-old head of clinical negligence at Sheffield-based Irwin Mitchell.

Why is he in the news? Acts for the families of 75 sufferers of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) affecting humans.

Background: Completed a law degree at Oxford in 1976 and, after a year out, finals at the College of Law in Chester in 1978.

Worked in a non-legal role at the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation before joining City firm DJ Freeman and qualifying in 1981.

Moved to Halls in the City where he became a partner in 1984 before joining Irwin Mitchell's Sheffield office in 1991.

Route to the case: 'I was asked to advise the Human BSE Foundation, because I had previously represented families of iatrogenic BSE (caused by contaminated pituitary human growth hormone) in the CJD litigation which ran from 1994 to 1999.'

Thoughts on the case: 'My experience in the protracted CJD litigation against the Department of Health led me to believe that a public inquiry was the best way to get into the information and evidence available.

If it was going to be a proper enquiry, it had to be properly resourced and run, and I was heavily involved in campaigning for that.

This government had to be nudged, but, to its credit, held the inquiry, allocated the right personnel, properly resourced it and it was led by a thorough, meticulous and astonishingly courteous judge.

There was no suggestion from anyone that they were not given the opportunity to put their views as they wanted.

We now have to think what can be done to put in place arrangements for a proper care package and compensation scheme for the families of existing sufferers and those who may suffer in future.'

Dealing with the media:' I find that although I have done it, it does not come instinctively.

This case and its issues had such political centrality that we all needed to be able to deal with the press.

For the most part the families were treated very well by journalists and given good support which my clients richly deserved.'Sue Allen