LAWYER IN THE NEWS

Who? Louise Hunt, 35-year-old head of clinical negligence in the Birmingham office of Russell Jones & Walker.Why is she in the news? Represents Kim Nicholls, the mother who gave birth after having an abortion procedure and was last week awarded 10,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

Ms Nicholls decided to terminate her pregnancy after being advised by her GP that she could be putting her life at risk by having another child.

She believes that she must have been carrying twins, as six months later she gave birth to a baby girl, Darcy, now aged two.Background: Ms Hunt was a practising nurse before enrolling at Staffordshire University for an LLB in 1989.

She completed her Law Society finals at Wolverhampton University in 1992, and qualified with Birmingham firm Coley & Tilley in 1995.

She moved after qualification to Coventry firm Brindley Twist Tafft & James, to defendant clinical negligence firm Lewingtons (which later merged into Mills & Reeve) in 1996, and to Challinors Lyon Clark in 1997.

In 1999 she joined Russell Jones & Walker, and was made partner in April this year.Route to the case: 'It was referred to us by another solicitor, as we specialise in clinical negligence.'Thoughts on the case: 'My client sees the settlement as a very unfair one, and it highlights the inadequacies of the McFarlane ruling [a recent decision meaning that a healthy child born through clinical negligence is no longer entitled to substantial compensation].

Although Ms Nicholls has a healthy daughter, the money she has been offered will not go far towards the cost of bringing her up.

The case also highlights a general failing with clinical negligence cases, in that although there were clearly gross errors made in my client's case, there is no proper system in place to prevent them from happening again.'Dealing with the media: 'I'm fortunate in that I've had a fair bit of experience; clinical negligence cases attract attention, and I've done TV and radio work.

The more you do, the more you get used to it - yesterday I did two radio interviews from my mobile phone at a service station.'Victoria MacCallum