Paula
Collins
Partner
Paula is a partner in the Healthcare Group. Her depth of speciality spans the full spectrum of healthcare litigation services including clinical negligence claims, product liability claims, defamation claims, regulatory investigations, disciplinary investigations, criminal investigations and inquests.
Areas of Expertise
Paula regularly acts in high-value and complex clinical negligence claims before the Circuit Court, the High Court and the Court of Appeal. She has achieved a number of precedent-setting outcomes in defending these claims.
Paula is also regularly instructed to act for clinicians in complex regulatory investigations before the Medical Council and Dental Council. She is similarly very experienced in medical inquests, which often run in parallel with a number of regulatory, disciplinary, internal and external clinical investigations. As such, Paula is often tasked with safeguarding clients’ interests across a number of investigations, for which she is well versed in ensuring that the approach taken in one investigation does not prejudice a client’s position in any parallel investigation / proceedings.
Paula’s speciality includes a wealth of experience in personal injuries litigation, regularly appearing before the Circuit Court and the High Court in the defence of these proceedings and advising clients in respect of future-proofing their businesses against such claims. Her experience also spans product liability litigation in the healthcare and medical device sector.
Experience and Education
- Paula’s experience includes advising in:
Complex healthcare litigation, including a precedent-setting ruling which has provided authoritative guidance for defending healthcare claims in Ireland; - High-value healthcare claims often relating to catastrophic birth injuries include cerebral palsy, quadriplegia, and autism;
- Regulatory investigations and Fitness to Practise Committee inquiries brought against practitioners by the Irish Medical Council and Dental Council, to include defending a lead surgeon against whom allegations were made regarding his care of paediatric orthopaedic patients;
- Judicial Review proceedings against regulatory bodies, including successfully overturning a Medical Council decision to investigate a complaint that had otherwise been withdrawn;
- Medical inquests, including representing a lead cardio-thoracic surgeon at the longest running medical inquest in the State’s history; and
- Complex product liability claims, where a business’s commercial reputation often requires protection.
- LLB University of Limerick
- LLM University of Cork
- Admitted as a solicitor in Ireland – 2017