Martin Seaward

Year of Call

1978

Email

Areas of Practice

Employment and Discrimination
Equality / Discrimination / Human Rights
Personal Injury / Clinical Negligence
Public and Regulatory Law

Profile

Martin Seaward specialises in personal injuries and fatal accidents and has a significant caseload of severe brain and spinal damage cases. He has particular experience of cases concerning fire and military services and dangerous sports including parachuting and rugby.

His pensions practice focuses on occupational pension schemes for workers exposed to high risk of injury such as firefighters, police, military personnel and some local government staff.

His regulatory work focuses mainly on pension appeals and disciplinary hearings, particularly within the fire and rescue services, and on Coroners' inquests arising out of deaths in service of firefighters and service men and women.

Administrative law work is a further specialism. This involves challenging Government decisions (central and local), particularly in connection with statutory pension schemes and decisions of disciplinary, medical and other tribunals. This has led Martin into the field of discrimination law applying the Part Time Workers Regulations to retained firefighters.

Martin's background includes work with young unemployed people and as senior housing adviser in Lambeth Housing Advice Centre before pupillage at Cloisters in 1982. He returned to Cloisters as a member in 2003.

He has expertise in conditional fees and has written and lectured extensively on this topic. He chairs the Bar Council's CFA Panel and is a contributor to its Conditional Fee Guidance.