Fiona Wise
Year of call 2010, Lincoln's Inn
Areas of Expertise
Regulatory and Professional Discipline Group, Inquests and Public Inquiries, Personal Injury, Insurance Fraud
PROFILE
Fiona joined Chambers in 2011 and developed a mixed common law practice. She specialises in multi-track Personal Injury, Inquests and Regulatory work. She is an accomplished and tenacious advocate who enjoys utilising the considerable advocacy experience and skills developed at the criminal bar in the early period of her practice. Fiona is well regarded for her approachable and pragmatic manner.
AREAS OF PRACTICE
INQUEST AND REGULATORY
Fiona is Head of the Inquest and Public Inquiries Team. She has a wide-ranging inquest practice and is experienced in cases involving the engagement of Article 2 ECHR and the requirement for a jury.
Fiona is able to draw on her significant experience of appearing before juries in the Crown Court when representing the interests of interested persons at inquests. She represents a range of interested persons, including family members, doctors, medical staffing agencies, local authorities and insurance companies. She has particular expertise in medical treatment cases, and recently secured a finding of neglect from HM Senior Coroner in a case involving conflicting expert evidence on the issue of causation.
Fiona's inquest practice neatly dovetails with her personal injury work and advice on related medical negligence claims.
Fiona is on the panel of counsel instructed to represent the General Medical Council in regulatory proceedings against doctors before the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
PERSONAL INJURY
Fiona has a busy multi-track personal injury practice, acting for both claimants and defendants.
Notable recent cases include:
- G v NHS Foundation Trust (ongoing) – acting for C who brings a fatal accident claim, currently pleaded in excess of £300,000, as a dependent.
- J v E (2023) – settled the pleadings and represented C throughout in a case involving Functional Neurological Disorder. Settled at JSM in the sum of £280,000.
- T v D (2022) – acting for C, settled the pleadings and advised pre-issue in a case which involved a serious spinal injury. Facilitated the case settling at an early stage.
- H v M (2022) – Fiona advised in conference and settled the pleadings for C in a case involving a serious spinal injury and chronic pain.
She regularly defends road traffic claims on the grounds of fundamental dishonesty (the full gambit of RTA fraud cases from staged accidents, to phantom passengers to LVI arguments) and is repeatedly instructed by Defendants in cases involving credit hire.
CRIME
Fiona's previous criminal work saw her prosecute and defend across the full spectrum of crime including cases involving multi-million pound frauds (led junior), serious sexual offences, supply of Class A drugs, firearms offences, serious assaults and robbery.
Fiona has advised on and conducted applications, variations, appeals and breach proceedings in respect of gang injunctions, firearms licences, housing injunctions, anti-social behaviour orders, football banning orders and domestic violence prevention orders. She also has experience of proceedings brought under the Licensing Act 2003.
TRAINING SERVICES
Fiona is happy to provide seminars and training to solicitors and insurers on the substantive law, practice and procedure. Recent examples include:
“Criminal convictions in personal injury cases: rules and ramifications.” Link (passcode: S8qSL2?N)
“Learning to live with imperfection of pragmatism: accommodation claims post Swift v Carpenter in 2023” (in conjunction with Matthew Snarr).
OTHER
Outside of work Fiona’s hobbies include various equestrian pursuits, open water swimming and trail running, the latter having seen her tackle her first ultra-marathon in 2022, running with her elder sister to raise money for the DEC Ukraine Appeal. Winning the first female pair title was an added bonus! A former women’s rugby union international (Belgian cap gained when working in Europe) and a stalwart of the Leinster team during her time in Dublin, she is now a keen supporter of Northampton Saints and Buckingham RUFC!
Fiona is a member of Lincoln's Inn and thoroughly enjoys volunteering to assist with training and interviewing the next generation of barristers.
Scholarships and Prizes
Lord Denning Scholarship, Lincoln's Inn
Wolfson Scholarship, Lincoln's Inn
Entrance Exhibitioner, Trinity College Dublin
Associations
Personal Injuries Bar Association (PIBA)
Criminal Bar Association (CBA)
Education
MA, Trinity College Dublin
BVC, BPP Law School London
GDL, BPP Law School London
Prescribed Information
Miss Fiona Wise is a practising barrister, who is regulated by the Bar Standards Board. Details of information held by the BSB about Miss Wise can be found here.
Miss Wise’s clerks will happily provide no obligation quotations for all legal services that she provides. Their contact details can be found here. It is most common for Miss Wise to undertake court work for a brief fee plus refresher days. For advisory work, drafting and conferences it is most common for this to be charged at an hourly rate although fixed fees are available. Miss Wise will consider Conditional Fee Agreements and Damages Based Agreements in cases with favourable prospects of success. Miss Wise will typically return paperwork within 14 days, however professional commitments, complexity and volume of documentation can affect these approximate timescales.
Specialist Areas of Practice:
Regulatory and Professional Discipline Group
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