Gary Brankin

Gary is the relationship partner for several of our legacy clients and responsible for service delivery. He acts for insurers, reinsurers, self-insured and uninsured companies.

Gary handles primarily high value and complex asbestos-related claims, some with a value in excess of £2million, but handles disease claims of all types, including lung cancer, skin cancer, bladder cancer, occupational asthma, dermatitis and all kinds of work-related upper and lower limb disorders. Gary manages the strategic cases relevant to the individual legacy clients. Gary’s practice has particular focus on the construction and public sector and claims for teachers, pupils and service personnel. He also has experience of developing innovative software and working with claims teams to reduce claims spend on a large scale.

Gary was one of the founding members of the Leeds office of a boutique legacy insurance firm, growing it to 20 plus lawyers prior to joining Kennedys. Gary is a recommended lawyer in The Legal 500 directories from 2016-2021 editions. The 2017 edition noted that Gary had “operated at the high end of the disease claims for many years”. The 2019 edition praises his “shrewd tactical awareness”.

Gary is a solicitor advocate (all higher courts) and is committed to increasing advocacy undertaken within the firm and regularly appears in the High Court. Gary has supervised and trained two pupil barristers through specialist pupillage within a law firm environment.

Gary acted as market advisor on the noise induced hearing loss market for the GIRO Actuarial Committee for a number of years. Gary has sat on the Law Society Council and on the Law Society Training Committee and has experience of high level policy advice at board level and delivering results through committee.

Gary has acted on several cases at High Court and Court of Appeal level, always on issues relevant to the legacy insurance sector.