|
2007 Called to the Bar of England and Wales
2006 Appointed Senior Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales
2006 Publication of Mullany & Handford's Tort Liability for Psychiatric Damage (2nd ed.)
2005-2007 Member Confidentiality of Health Information Committee of Western Australia
2002-2006 Member Medical Board of Western Australia
1998 Member Mental Health Review Board of Western Australia
1998 Publication of Torts Tomorrow: A Tribute to John Fleming
1997 Appointed Adjunct Professor of Law, University of New South Wales
1997 Publication of Torts in the Nineties
1993 Publication of Tort Liability for Psychiatric Damage: The Law of ‘Nervous Shock’
1993 Appointed Inaugural Editor of the Tort Law Review
1991 Called to the Australian Bar
1991 Magdalen College, University of Oxford
B.C.L. (First Class)
1989 University of Western Australia
LL.B (Hons) (First Class)
Frank Edward Parsons Memorial Prize in Law (most outstanding graduand)
Email: nmullany@3serjeantsinn.com
|
|
Nicholas is a highly qualified barrister specialising in medical and mental health law. He has extensive experience gained over more than 18 years of practice including numerous appearances in the highest courts of Australia.
Nicholas’ practice focuses principally on the common law and the law of tort and medical and mental health law in particular. It encompasses all aspects of civil litigation and regulatory proceedings including advisory, trial and appellate advocacy. He has particular interest and experience in judicial review and appellate advocacy in the superior courts where he has appeared frequently as lead counsel. Many of the cases in which Nicholas has appeared in recent years have involved important and complex principles of law or given rise to significant issues for the administration of justice.
Nicholas is the editor of the international legal journal, the Tort Law Review, a position he has held for 17 years. He was a co-author of the leading text on the law relating to psychiatric injury and is also the author of numerous other publications which have been considered by law reform agencies and courts throughout the world. He is a former member of both the Mental Health Review and Medical Boards of Western Australia and of the Confidentiality of Health Information Committee of that State.
|
|
Nicholas’ practice includes the following:
Medical ethics – issues of capacity and best interests in relation to all aspects of treatment decisions concerning both adults and minors, issues in relation to other medical decision making, organ and tissue transplantation, removal and ownership of body parts, clinical research, consent, confidentiality, judicial review and appeals. He appears for interested parties of all categories including patients, family members and trusts.
Recent cases include representation of a mother whose son had been shot in an application by a hospital trust not to resuscitate him or administer additional treatment and of a hospital trust in its application to withdraw treatment from an infant.
Nicholas is a contributor to Medical Treatment: Decisions and the Law (2nd ed, 2010).
Human rights – impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on all aspects of medical and mental health law
Public inquiries and inquests – Recent inquests include representation of a mental health trust following the suicide of a patient detained under the Mental Health Act after he absconded from hospital premises, of a mental health in-reach team following the suicide of a prison inmate in his cell, of a hospital trust following the death of a two year old boy from meningococcal septicaemia, of a hospital trust following the death of a neonate from an acute hypoxic ischaemic cerebral injury, of a mental health trust following the suicide of a young woman formerly under care, of a hospital trust following the death of a four month old infant who received ten times the appropriate dose of diuretic medication, of NHS Direct following the death of an elderly man from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, of a hospital trust following the death of an elderly man from complications arising from inguinal hernia repair, of a hospital trust following the death of a patient from multi organ failure and sepsis, of a hospital trust following the death of a dementia patient from bronchopneumonia, of a mental health trust and psychiatrist following a death in custody, of a general practitioner following the death of an infant from listeriosis, of a family of an elderly resident who died at a nursing home, of a hospital trust in an inquest concerning heparinisation following the death of a patient from pulmonary thromboembolism and deep vein thrombosis, of a mother following the death of a neonate, of a widow following the death of her husband in a road accident involving another driver who suffered an epileptic seizure, of a widow following the death of her husband after biopsy of the L4 vertebra and the L4/L5 disc and subsequent haemorrhage, of a widower following the death of his wife from cardiorespiratory failure consequent on a chronic gastrointestinal pseudo-obstruction causing massive distension of the abdomen, of a hospital trust following the death of a detoxifying prison inmate from streptococcal septicaemia, of a general practitioner following the death of a prison inmate from acute cardiac failure and of a general practitioner following the death of a patient from a cerebral abscess.
Mental health – issues of capacity, consent to treatment, compulsory detention, treatment decisions concerning mental patients under the terms of the Mental Health legislation and at common law, representation in the Mental Health Review Tribunal and on judicial review and appeals.
Nicholas is a former member of the Mental Health Review Board of Western Australia.
He has lectured and written extensively on mental health law including numerous articles in various international legal journals and the leading international text on liability for psychiatric damage - Mullany & Handford’s Tort Liability for Psychiatric Damage (2nd ed, 2006) (by Dr Peter Handford).
Professional discipline - advisory work and representation of professionals from all medical and allied fields in disciplinary hearings in various tribunals, committees and panels including the General Medical Council, the General Dental Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council and on judicial review and appeals.
Sports law – medical related issues including treatment of sporting injuries, advisory work and representation of sportsmen and women in disciplinary hearings in various tribunals, committees and panels and on judicial review and appeals.
|
|
Tort Liability for Psychiatric Damage: The Law of ‘Nervous Shock’ (1993) (co-author with Dr Peter Handford). Foreword by The Right Hon. Sir Thomas Bingham.
This work has been categorised as “one of the most widely reviewed legal monographs ever published”. It has been cited extensively in the literature and analysed by law reform agencies and courts throughout the world including the House of Lords and the Court of Appeal.
The Law Commission has referred to the book as a “meticulously researched” work from which it derived “great help”. Reviewers have called it “a work of impressive scholarship at once indispensable to the practitioner” (the late Prof. John Fleming), a work of “impeccable” scholarship and a “magnificent compendium of material, unrivalled in its coverage and presentation” (Tony Weir) and a “superb treatment of the subject” (The Hon. Justice Allen Linden). It has been said that “this is a work that no law library should be without. Nor should any practitioner whose practice includes, or could include, cases of this type” (Prof. Gerald Fridman).
Torts in the Nineties (1997) (editor). Foreword by The Hon. Sir Gerard Brennan AC, KBE.
Torts Tomorrow: A Tribute to John Fleming (1998) (co-editor with The Hon. Justice Allen Linden). Foreword by The Hon. Anthony Murray Gleeson AC.
Mullany & Handford’s Tort Liability for Psychiatric Damage (2nd ed, 2006) (by Dr Peter Handford). Foreword by The Right Hon. Lord Bingham of Cornhill KG.
Nicholas has published numerous articles, comments and notes in various international legal journals including the Law Quarterly Review, the Modern Law Review, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, the University of New South Wales Law Journal and the Melbourne University Law Review.
His scholarship has been referred to by numerous appellate courts including the House of Lords, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Ireland, the High Court of Australia, the New Zealand Court of Appeal, the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia and the Courts of Appeal of New South Wales, Queensland, Ontario, British Columbia and, most recently, Singapore.
Inaugural Editor of the Tort Law Review
Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Professional Negligence
Member of the Editorial Board of the Lloyd's Law Reports: Medical
|
|
Member Professional Negligence Bar Association
Member London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association
Member Mental Health Review Board of Western Australia (1998)
Member Medical Board of Western Australia (2002-2006)
Member Confidentiality of Health Information Committee of Western Australia (2005-2007)
Consultant to the Law Council of Australia (Federal Negligence Review Panel)
Member of the Law Council of Australia’s Tort Law Reform Working Group
Consultant to the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia (Limitation and Notice of Actions, Civil and Criminal Justice Systems)
Visiting Professor of Law, University of Western Ontario (1999-2000)
Visiting Professor of Law, University of Ottawa (2004-2005, 2007-2009)
Adjunct Professor of Law, University of New South Wales (1997-2006)
Senior Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales
|