A North-East lawyer is using her unique experience as a midwife to support women through action linked with birth injuries.
Michelle Armstrong is a partner in the Medical Negligence and Serious Injury team at Burnetts at Dean Street, Newcastle.
Her seven years spent as a midwife at the Royal Victoria Infirmary have given her an insight into cases specifically linked with problems during birth.
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After training and working as a lawyer in the corporate sector for ten years, she became pregnant with her first child and began thinking about a career change.
Her first child was born by emergency C-section and was only saved because Michelle realised something was drastically wrong and went to the hospital.
After having a daughter, Michelle recognised that she loved being involved with children and wanted to go back to university to study as a midwife.
While she loved that time, Michelle could also see the pitfalls – especially with limited resources and overstretched staff.
“The sort of midwife I wanted to be I found I couldn’t,” she said.
“I started to think about the ethical, moral and legal areas of childbirth and that really started to interest me.”
She found she enjoyed the academic side of her career and went on to study for a Masters degree in Medical law.
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Afterwards, she got a job as a birth injury negligence lawyer, a position she kept for the next six years.
In 2018, Michelle moved to Burnetts and she now works on a range of cases, but primarily with families where there may be a brain injury related to a traumatic birth.
“I think clients appreciate the fact that I have medical knowledge and can explain to them why certain things have happened,” she said.
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