Health & Safety Lawyer Mike Appleby Joins Fisher Scoggins Waters

06/09/2016

Mike Appleby joins Fisher Scoggins Waters as a Partner in its well established health and safety department.. 

Mike is a leading health and safety solicitor with over 20 years’ experience. Mike acts for companies and individuals facing criminal investigations in respect of fatalities and serious injuries resulting from work related incidents.  This includes defending manslaughter and health & safety prosecutions appeals against prohibition and improvement notices, and representing clients at coroner’s inquests.

Last year Mike successfully defended an operations director prosecuted by HSE following a fatal electrocution.  He is currently judicially reviewing the dispute process of HSE’s Fee for Intervention Scheme (FFI).

A winning team

On joining FSW, Mike says; 

“I have known and worked with Charlotte Waters and Mark Scoggins for many years, so when an opportunity to join FSW as a partner presented itself I could not turn it down.  FSW  have the huge advantage of not being tied down by ‘big firm’ processes and wasteful overheads.  Partners are afforded the flexibility to be able to concentrate on client needs and come up with swift, effective resolutions”.

FSW Managing Partner Charlotte Waters elaborates on this point stating; 

“We are a great team, we complement each other’s skills and share the same work ethic and client care ethos.  There is a temptation to think that major health and safety incidents need large teams of lawyers and paralegals, but in fact the opposite is true.   Of the many big cases we have been involved in over the past decade, all have been best managed by teams of two or three experienced lawyers.  A smaller team stays tight-knit and opportunities to establish links between emerging pieces of information and evidence are greatly enhanced."

Mike says that joining FSW brings back together the winning team of himself, Mark and Charlotte. Together, they successfully represented railway maintenance arm of Balfour Beatty when it was acquitted of corporate manslaughter in a criminal trial following the Hatfield rail crash.  

Deepening our health & safety offering

There are significant challenges ahead for companies and their directors following the introduction earlier this year of new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences.  Medium and large organisations have already seen a big increase in fines. For convicted individuals these guidelines have lowered the threshold for custodial sentences.

Both Charlotte and Mark believe that Mike joining the team will allow FSW to expand on its already thriving and highly respected health and safety practice:  

“Mike brings with him unrivalled experience and knowledge, in both health and safety and FFI matters.  We are excited to have him on board.”

To contact Michael directly email appleby@fsw-law.com or by phone 0207 993 8264