Gill Connelly

Based at Thompsons Solicitors' Newcastle-upon-Tyne office, Gill is an experienced member of the firm's specialist team representing clients with asbestos-related chest and lung diseases.

Gill is responsible for the most complicated multi-track cases, where compensation is usually in excess of £25,000 and which tend to involve more than one defendant. She takes cases from all over the North East of England and Cumbria.

Gill combines her dedicated professionalism with a sensitive and caring approach to clients who are often fatally ill.

Gill became a qualified chartered legal executive in 2004 specialising in asbestos-related cases, having joined Thompsons in 1987 in a clerical and secretarial post. She was subsequently promoted to a paralegal role dealing with a wide range of personal injury cases and claims from clients who had sustained injuries on the road or at work.

Since then she has accumulated more than decade of experience in her chosen specialism, dealing in particular with claims related to asbestosis, Pleural thickening, mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancer. Some of her clients have contracted their condition because of their work with asbestos and others through secondary exposure, such as washing clothes covered in the material.

Her central aim is to achieve the highest possible compensation for her clients given that they have suffered intense pain and clearly need compensation for future loss of pension. She is also aware that damages must be secured in the shortest possible time. Some of her clients have a limited life-span and will need to know their families will be financially secure after their death.

Gill is a keen reader of crime stories away from work.

Gill's case experience

• Secured £215,000 for a former shipwright who worked at three Tyneside shipyards as an apprentice when he was 15, and was diagnosed with mesothelioma 50 years later.  

• Recovered £200,000 in damages on behalf of a cleaner who was exposed to asbestos while working for the London borough of Lambeth in high rise flats.

• Secured a provisional settlement for a former dockyard worker diagnosed with diffuse pleural thickening and told he had a 90 per cent chance of developing lung cancer.

Professional membership

Since 2004 Gill has been a member of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and she became a Fellow in 2006.  

Testimonials

Gill Connelly and others have, after three years of hard work and diligence, brought a successful conclusion to my late husband's claim.  Without her support and guidance this time would have been even more difficult. Thank you all who were involved.

Gill's former client

As a representative of Thompsons, I found Gill Connelly to be extremely efficient, very knowledgeable of the law and who always kept me up to date with every aspect of my case. I have never had to deal with a solicitor before and I couldn't have been in better hands.

Gill's former client