Dr Michael Powers QC is leader of the Medical Law Group at Clerksroom.

He has a wide experience of major actions where issues of medical causation arise. He acts on behalf of pharmaceutical companies in group litigation and licensing matters. He also has a leading practice in non-pharmaceutical cases where exposure to chemicals and irradiation have been alleged to cause injury and in professional medical negligence work. Dr. Powers is an Accredited Mediator with the Notre Dame School Law School and acts as a mediator in claims, particularly relating to professional negligence.

He also has a particular expertise in the law and practice of coroners' courts and he is often instructed in complex medical cases where pharmaceutical/chemical companies have an interest in the outcome of inquests. In respect of the inquests into the deaths of Dr David Kelly, the Government Scientist, Diana, Princess of Wales and Jean Charles de Menezes he has been an invited media commentator.

Before coming to the Bar, Dr Powers held hospital appointments in a number of specialties including obstetrics and anaesthesia. At the Bar he is an established specialist in a wide variety of medico-legal litigation and is recognised as a leading silk in clinical negligence and product liability. Medical and legal causation of injuries alleged to have been caused by drugs, chemicals and radiation is a particular interest of his.

Michael's interest in aviation (he has held a helicopter pilot's licence) led to his involvement with the group seeking to rectify the injustice to Flt Lts Jonathan Tapper and Richard Cook who were blamed for gross negligence resulting in the crash of the newly modified HC2 Chinook helicopter ZD576 on the Mull of Kintyre on 2^nd June 1994.
See the evidence presented to the Secretaries of State Rt Hon Des Browne MP and the Rt Hon John Hutton MP.

Advocacy training is a major interest. He is “Grade A” qualified to train tutors of advocacy and he is Vice Chairman of the Advocacy Training Council. He lectures and trains in the UK and overseas and is a member of the Barristers Overseas Advocacy Committee and the Advocacy Training Council. He was elected a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn in 1998 and a Fellow of the Faculty of Forensic Medicine and Law of the Royal College of Physicians in 2007.