Hillsborough families’ legal teams, including Garden Court North Chambers barristers, win outstanding achievement award at LALYs

8 July 2016

The Hillsborough legal teams, including Garden Court North Chambers’ Pete Weatherby QC, Mark George QC, Kate Stone and Andy Fitzpatrick, who acted for 22 families, all received a standing ovation at the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2016 (LALY) awards yesterday evening as they were awarded the outstanding achievement award.

We were also delighted that Chambers’ Joseph Markus was a finalist in the LALY Legal Aid Newcomer  2016 category, which was won by Darragh Mackin from Northern Irish firm KRW Law.

The LALY outstanding achievement award 2016 went to all of the lawyers who represented families at the Hillsborough inquests which ran from 2014 and concluded with a verdict of unlawful killing in April 2016.

Kate accepted the award on behalf of Chambers’ Hillsborough team and Pete said:

“Representation for the families was a massive and highly complex task.  It required real dedication from a large team and it is great that this has been recognised at the LALY awards.  The LALYs matter because these are awards for lawyers who are dedicated to social justice and they are not just meaningless backslapping by PR or vanity publications.  Our team included many lawyers who gave up permanent posts because they wanted to dedicate themselves to these historic and iconic inquests and the campaign to correct this dreadful miscarriage of justice.”

A further 11 Hillsborough teams were also recognised for their Outstanding Achievement.

The Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards (LALYs) were held in London on Thursday 7th July to promote access to justice and celebrate the work of the legal aid lawyers across the UK who serve the most vulnerable in society.