The Newcastle upon Tyne Law Society
Legal Awards 2014
Special Achievement Award
Nomination of Barry N Speker OBE DL LLB
Barry has been in practice as a Solicitor in Newcastle for over 43 years. He joined Samuel Phillips & Co on qualifyingin June 1971 becoming a Partner in 1973 and Senior Partner in 1987, continuing in that role for 25 years until 2012. After 42½ years he accepted an invitation to join Sintons as a Consultant, where he concentrates mainly on his interest in medical law and ethics.
Over his career, he developed specialisms in a number of areas and continues to be nationally recognised in relation to medical law, employment law and aspects of family law. He was a founder member of the Law Society Clinical Negligence Panel and a founder member of the Children Panel. He is still an interviewer and assessor on behalf of the Law Society of applicants for accreditation. He continues to adjudicate on Legal Appeals for the Legal Services Commission.
He has been recommended annually by Legal 500 and Chambers Directory as well as Legal Experts in several areas of specialism and he has a very wide client list, acting for a large number of Judges, Barristers and other Solicitors.
Barry was Chairman of the Young Solicitors Group, and for many years served on the Newcastle Law Society Standing Committee becoming President of Newcastle Law Society in 2000.
He is Trust Solicitor to The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is an acknowledged expert in medical law and ethics and specialises in Inquests. He writes widely on medico-legal topics and features in medical as well as legal literature and textbooks. He speaks at many national conferences on medico-legal subjects and has also spoken widely on employment law, family law and adoption. He is Legal Adviser of two Adoption and Fostering Agencies.
Barry was a District Judge for ten years and has been an Employment Judge for more than 20 years sitting regularly in Tribunals in Newcastle, Middlesbrough and London.
Despite what has been a very busy legal career,Barry has been involved in many initiatives in the wider community. From his membership of the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce Committee, he became a Director of the Grainger Town Project being a member of the Strategic Board and chairing the Business Forum. The Grainger Town Project achieved international recognition attracting over £200m of private investment for the revitalised City Centre, to add to £40m of public funding. Signs of the success of the Grainger Town initiative are to be seen all around the City. This includes the Imperial Chinese Arch which Barry championed from his involvement in the Chinese Community and this was eventually erected to the great satisfaction of the Chinese Community of the North East.
Grainger Town led Barry to become a member of the Board of Newcastle Partnership, which was the local Strategic Partnership of Newcastle and was its Chairman from 2004 to 2008.
Other boards and organisations in which he has been involvedinclude being President of the North East Council on Addictions (NECA), Board Member of NE1 (Newcastle’s Business Improvement District), Trustee of Age UK Newcastle, Board Member of North of England Civic Trust, Chair of the Newcastle City Centre Business Forum and the Newcastle Chinese Futures Group, on the Board of the Tyne Theatre and Opera House Trust and on the Development Committee of the Theatre Royal.
Barry also undertakes fundraising for various organisations which include the Charlie Bear Appeal for the Northern Centre for Cancer Care of which he is a Patron and he also organises Chinese banquets for various health initiatives. He also finds time to be a Governor of Heaton Manor School. He writes monthly columns in two magazines, Accent and Lifestyle and regularly features as a legal expert on Radio Newcastle.
Barry was made a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear in 2002.
For his efforts in the wider community Barry received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2008 for “services to business and the community in Newcastle upon Tyne.”