Kate Fawell-Comley

Full Profile

Kate has experience in a wide variety of healthcare law, to include clinical negligence claims and Court of Protection cases. Her particular speciality is in representing healthcare clients at inquests and her practice is now almost exclusively in this domain. Kate conducts all of her own advocacy and does so on a weekly basis. Her clients include insurers, individual practitioners, medical defence organisations, NHS Trusts, GP Practices and private providers. 

Kate joined Clyde & Co in September 2025, after ten years at another NHS panel firm. 

She has represented clients in a significant breadth of inquest proceedings to include before a jury and those where Article 2 is engaged. Her cases have included deaths in acute and emergency care, in the community, mental health cases, maternity inquests and those concerning deaths in police and prison custody. In the past few years, Kate has represented clients in the most complex of inquest cases, to include those where other Interested Persons are represented by King’s Counsel, and in cases which have received significant media attention. 

Kate holds higher rights of audience (civil proceedings). Since 2023, she has sat as an Assistant Coroner in West Sussex, Brighton and Hove. This is a part-time judicial appointment which Kate carries out alongside her role at Clyde & Co. Kate has spent over a year on secondment at various NHS Trusts, which allowed her to work closely with clinicians and to adopt a friendly and supportive attitude which she carries through her practice. Her background in clinical negligence litigation means that she has a significant understanding of the crossover between claims and inquests and she is uniquely positioned to be able to represent clients in both forums. She also has significant experience in defending Human Rights Act claims: frequently those which run alongside or after an inquest. 

Experience

• Representing healthcare clients at multiple inquests concerning deaths in custody - most recently representing an NHS Trust in a medically complex month-long jury inquest where there were three experts. 
• Represented two members of healthcare staff at a long multi-IP inquest with a jury concerning the death of a patient further to police restraint. 
• Represented a healthcare assistant in a jury inquest following the self-inflicted death of a patient in a privately run mental health unit.
• Represented three NHS Trusts at an inquest concerning a self-inflicted death further to domestic violence.