Daniel Tobin

Dan specialises in high value, complex personal injury, motor claims, property damage and general insurance work.

He has been listed as a Leading Junior in Personal Injury since 2010. He is currently listed as band 2 in The Legal 500 and band 3 in Chambers and Partners.

In Chambers and Partners 2023, he is described as “a very user-friendly barrister who puts clients and witnesses immediately at their ease”. He is also described as “really straight-talking and [with] a great command of the courtroom”.

Other directory’ feedback includes: “An outstanding advocate who presents cases in a straightforward and eloquent manner. (Legal 500, 2021), “a strong negotiator who presses the right buttons to obtain maximum results” (Legal 500, 2019), and “very client-focused, extremely personable and a skilled negotiator” (Legal 500, 2017)

Dan deals with liability and quantum disputes in all forms of RTA, EL and PL claims.  He is equally at home in all aspects of modern personal injury practice, whether it be settling detailed Schedules and Counter Schedules of Loss, preparing for and attending JSMs or cross-examining experts at trial. He is often instructed in cases where there are elements of fraud, malingering and/or exaggeration.

He has extensive experience of amputation and prosthetics, catastrophic brain injury, spinal injuries, chronic pain and somatoform conditions.

He often appears on his own against Leading Counsel.

Recent Defendant cases include:

• a claim against a former employee of a large statutory undertaker who was alleging that CRPS had caused a lifelong loss of earnings, where surveillance evidence utilised at trial established malingering;
• a claim arising from the allegedly negligent installation of a domestic hot water system which caused severe burns leading to amputation;
• proceedings brought by a former Team GB martial artist who claimed seven-figure damages for, inter alia, being deprived of the opportunity to compete at the Tokyo Olympics;
• a claim arising from the life-altering injuries caused when the claimant was deliberately run down and left for dead by an ex-boyfriend;
• a double fatality caused on the M42 motorway, caused by flooding which was said to have been caused by negligently installed telecommunications apparatus;
• representing a local authority in proceedings brought on behalf of a child who was blinded by the allegedly negligent use of a lawnmower.

In terms of his Claimant work, Dan has been described as “the go-to man for highways claims” (Chambers & Partners, 2018). He is proud of the fact that “he has an excellent knowledge of the Highways Act and a feel for injured cyclists”. (Legal 500, 2018) but remains “a very approachable and down-to-earth barrister”. (Chambers & Partners, 2018).

Recent successfully concluded Claimant cases include:

• representing the Estate of a triathlete killed as a result of a hitting a pothole in the highway whilst training for Ironman Wales;
• acting for a cyclist who suffered C3/C4 spinal cord injury as a result of an accident on the highway;
• representing a dental surgeon who suffered extensive maxillo-facial and dental injuries in a cycling accident;
• acting for a claimant who suffered a significant spinal injury whilst riding a quadbike on the public highway;
• a claim on behalf of an elderly resident in a care home who fell down an open lift shaft;
• acting for a pedestrian who suffered a very significant ankle fracture when tripping on a tree pit located on London Southbank;
• a claim for a cyclist who was deliberately run over by a motorist.

Dan has also, for several years, acted for a number of large institutional defendants in claims arising from the allegedly defective installation of cavity wall systems, being work which in more recent times turns on fairly technical insurance indemnity issues arising from the significant number of CWI claims pursued under the Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010.

He has two teenage daughters and lives in London. Outside of work he rides his bike (a lot), enjoys reading, eating out and the cinema. He is a qualified skydiver, has a black belt in Korean kickboxing and still harbours the (albeit ever-diminishing) ambition of completing an Ironman triathlon.