Gorvins Solicitors prides itself on the top-quality legal services we offer to our clients. We can only achieve that with the very best people guiding clients through every stage of their legal matter.
In our Meet the Team series, we shine a light on the people behind the work. This time, we meet Gary Boyd, Partner and Head of our Military Personal Injury team, who specialises in supporting members of the Armed Forces with serious and complex personal injury claims.
Tell us about your role at Gorvins
I’ve been at Gorvins for just over eight years, having originally joined the firm to establish our Military Personal Injury department.
I’d already spent around a decade specialising in military personal injury at my previous firm, so I came to Gorvins with the opportunity to build and lead a dedicated team focused on this very specialist area of law.
My day to day is about representing serving and former members of the Armed Forces who have suffered injuries during their military careers.
What makes military personal injury different?
It’s an incredibly interesting and specialist area of personal injury law.
Many of our clients are what I would describe as reluctant litigants. They often have astrong sense of loyalty to the Armed Forces and, in particular, to their regiment, so pursuing a claim is often not something they enter into lightly.
Military careers place significant physical and psychological demands on people. An injury that might allow somebody in another profession to continue working can potentially bring a military career to an end.
As a result, the cases we deal with are often serious, complex and important to the wellbeing of the people we work with. Our clients can also be based all over the world, while the circumstances in which injuries occur can be incredibly varied.
That complexity is what makes working in this area of law so rewarding. It’s a privilege to work with the many men and women who have served this nation and it’s something I’ve dedicated most of my career to.
What led you to a career in law?
Law wasn’t actually my first career. I originally graduated in another discipline and spent around four years working in construction as a surveyor.
There was quite a lot of contract law involved in that work, which sparked my interest in the legal profession. I also had friends who were lawyers and, through conversations with them, became increasingly interested in pursuing a legal career myself.
I knew fairly early on that personal injury, and particularly serious personal injury litigation, was where I wanted to be. I wanted to represent people who were in genuine need of support following life-changing injuries.
I moved into catastrophic injury work quite quickly and, from there, began specialising in military personal injury. I don’t have a military background myself, but working with members of the Armed Forces gave me a real interest in the area.
What do you enjoy most about working with military clients?
I find the people we represent genuinely interesting. They tend to be active, adventurous and dynamic individuals, and you meet people from an enormous range of backgrounds.
I also have a great deal of respect for what they do and the commitment involved in serving in the Armed Forces. It genuinely feels like an honour to represent them, helping them get a result that will support their (and their family’s) wellbeing now and in the future.
You also encounter an incredibly diverse range of cases. Injuries can happen in unusual circumstances and in locations all over the world, which means no two cases are the same. We of course work with a great degree of sensibility around these cases and bring all of our legal expertise to bear in helping our clients secure the rehabilitation and compensation they deserve.
Why Gorvins?
One of the things I really enjoy about Gorvins is being part of a multidisciplinary legal practice.
There are some extremely knowledgeable lawyers here, working across very different areas of law, and I enjoy having colleagues around me whose expertise is completely different from my own, allowing us to benefit from each other’s expertise and to thereby optimise our service to our clients .
As heads of departments, we are afforded the requisite respect and trust to run the teams in best interests of the clients and all concerned Having that freedom and responsibility has allowed us to develop a genuinely specialist military personal injury practice and focus on doing what we believe is right for our clients.
What advice would you give someone considering a military personal injury claim?
Make sure the solicitor you instruct has genuine experience of military personal injury litigation.
It is a specialist area and there are important differences between military claims and general personal injury litigation. Your solicitor needs to understand how to deal with the Ministry of Defence, know which experts to approach and understand the nuances of military claims.
My advice would always be to look beyond the website and find out about the actual experience of the people who will be handling your case.
There are relatively few lawyers who genuinely specialise extensively in military personal injury, so choosing someone with the right knowledge and experience can make an enormous difference.
What do you enjoy outside work?
I have two young children, so a lot of my time outside work is spent making memories with them.
I’m a big fan of the outdoors and particularly enjoy camping, fishing, walking and cycling. Canoeing and kayaking are big passions for me, especially white-water kayaking.
I enjoy introducing my children to those activities too. One of my favourite ways to spend a weekend is what I call “canoe camping”: setting off down a river for the day, stopping to camp beside it overnight and then getting up the next morning and carrying on.
It’s good for the soul. There are few better ways to switch off and spend a couple of days outdoors.