GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE YEAR 2018

Dan Toner, General Counsel and Group Company Secretary, Spire Healthcare Group 1WINNER

The past year has been a period of unparalleled challenge for Spire Healthcare’s legal team, led by general counsel and group company secretary Dan Toner. In addition to the day job (which in 2017 included opening two new hospitals, rolling out the latest phase of sector remedies following the CMA’s inquiry into private healthcare and fending off a takeover bid from Spire’s largest shareholder) Dan found himself at the centre of difficult events that attracted international media attention.

In responding to these unprecedented events, Dan went outside his comfort zone as a corporate lawyer to provide strategic and moral leadership, whilst along the way settling the UK’s largest ever medical negligence case.

In this crisis management litigation, the team came up with a managed process to minimise costs and move claims from patients forward; designed a settlement fund structure that allowed all victims, including those that had not yet come forward, to be compensated; leading in crisis management investigations and media strategy; and producing the first guide to hospital regulation and legal requirements.

“It is clear that this was way beyond the day job and uncharted waters for Dan and his team with myriad legal issues to deal with along with significant media interest and commentary to manage,” The Lawyer Awards judges said. ‘The company faced a very significant reputational and commercial challenge – rather than only dealing with the legal aspects of this case, it’s clear that there was great thought around the impact on public opinion, doing the right thing, and justice.’

Highly commended: Lucy Clarke-Bodicoat, General Counsel & Corporate Services Director, HS1

Lucy has embedded a simple but effective legal strategy – to protect the business whilst ensuring HS1 achieves its commercial objectives and maximises its commercial opportunities. Her strategy has had a direct impact on the entire business.

She has been central to helping set the direction of the company following the sale of HS1 to ensure the business is best placed to deliver for shareholders, investors, customers and the passengers that use HS1 and its stations. The judges praised her for ‘clearly making a major contribution across numerous aspects of what is one of the largest and most important infrastructure projects going on today […] It’s cutting-edge stuff and very impressive.’

Commended: Alice Marsden, General Counsel and Company Secretary, Thomas Cook

Alice delivered the final pieces of her reorganisation of the legal and company secretariat team during 2017 in order to align with the horizontal matrix implemented across the business. Judges were impressed by her work resuling in a number of widely reported judgments for fundamental dishonesty, a landmark criminal prosecution for fraud and a significant volume of claim discontinuances. The judges commended Marsden’s ‘clear commercial strategy’, displaying ‘a real value-add’.