Juliet Stevens

Professional Discipline

Juliet has experience of representing individuals in healthcare disciplinary proceedings before a variety of tribunals, including the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), Social Work England (SWE), the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC), the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BAPC).

As a result of her previous career as a doctor, Juliet has an immensely useful practical understanding of the challenges and realities of working in the healthcare sector. She uses this to inform her professional discipline practice.

Selected Cases

• BACP v SE (2024): Acted for a counsellor. The panel unanimously found that there had been no breach of professional standards.
• MPTS v JH (2022): Acted for a doctor who had self-prescribed opiates on a number of occasions.
• BAPC v NN (2022): Acted for a counsellor involved in practice review proceedings arising from allegations of mental ill health.
• BPC v MD (2022): Acted for a psychoanalyst before a health review panel. Her fitness to practise was found unimpaired, and her suspension revoked.
• SWE v SN (2022): Acted for a social worker who admitted various allegations made against her including a charge of dishonesty. At the Fitness to Practise hearing the SWE sought suspension. The social worker received a warning for 12 months, with no restrictions placed on her practice.
• GOsC v TM (2021): Acted for an osteopath who had previously been suspended from practice for 18 months due to having been found to have engaged in sexual activity with a patient. After a Professional Conduct Committee review hearing no further directions were made and the osteopath was permitted to return to unrestricted practice.

Professional Liability

Juliet’s professional liability practice covers a wide range of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on claims against legal professionals.

Selected Cases

• Acted on behalf of a firm of solicitors whose negligence had resulted in the strike out of a personal injury claim.
• Acted on behalf of a firm of solicitors regarding an alleged negligent failure to recover costs from a liquidator.
• Instructed as sole counsel in a claim valued at £1.25 million against a leading structural and civil engineering consultancy. The claim concerned a property which sustained significant structural damage during basement construction works.
• Acted on behalf of a firm of solicitors in a claim in which it was alleged that earlier proceedings had been compromised contrary to the claimant’s instructions.
• Acted on behalf of claimants in a Japanese Knotweed claim against a building surveyor.
• Settled a Defence in a claim against conveyancing solicitors concerning the scope of an overage clause in the transfer of undeveloped land.
• Advised a firm of conveyancing solicitors as to pre-action tactics and settling a Letter of Response in relation to allegations that the firm had failed to adequately advise a purchaser as to his stamp duty land tax (SDLT) liability, and had further failed to take steps to minimise the same.
• Advised and drafted pleadings in claims in which it was alleged that conveyancing solicitors had failed to apply for SDLT multiple dwellings relief (MDR).
• Settled a Defence in claim against a law firm in which it was alleged that failures to adequately conduct personal injury litigation had led to the strike out of a meritorious claim.
• Settled a Defence in a claim against a law firm where it was alleged that, but for a failure to negotiate a standstill agreement, a claim pleaded at c.£290k but with poor prospects of success would have settled pre-action.

Juliet is an elected member of the Professional Negligence Bar Association’s executive committee and co-author of the chapter concerning Tortious Liability in Respect of Building Operations within Emden’s Construction Law.

Awards

News

• Victoria Woodbridge elected as the next Chair of the PNBA
• 25 for 25: The Pro Bono Challenge

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Articles

• The cost of commercial surrogacy abroad is a recoverable head of loss: Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14
• Appealing findings made by the TCC: guidance from the Court of Appeal

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Qualifications

• BPTC, City University (2016)
• GDL (Distinction), City University (2015)
• Queen Mother’s Scholarship, Middle Temple, 2015
• Astbury Scholarship, Middle Temple, 2014
• Part 1 Membership Examination, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (2011)
• Medicine BM BCh (Distinction), University of Oxford (2010)
• Medical Sciences MA (First Class), University of Oxford (2007)

Memberships

• PNBA
• PIBA
• LCLCBA