The 14th annual Manchester Legal Awards, hosted by the Manchester Law Society, took place at the Midland Hotel last night (Thursday 8th June).
The event brings together hundreds of guests from the legal industry to celebrate the region’s talent and this year was no exception. Winners were announced from a shortlist of 74 firms and individuals across 22 different categories. These categories ranged from Team of the Year to Health and Wellbeing Champions.
We’re delighted to announce that Farleys’ Partner Kelly Darlington scooped the Solicitor of the Year award. Kelly is head of the inquest team here at Farleys and has extensive experience of representing bereaved families, with a particular emphasis on mental health related deaths, deaths in prison, police custody, hospitals and local authority care. Kelly is passionate about the work she does in helping bereaved families in searching for answers around the death of their loved ones.
This award comes after a significant year for Kelly which has seen her working on a number of high-profile inquests including that of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, which attracted nationwide interest. Off the back of this, she was featured as Lawyer of the Week in The Times and the Law Society Gazette.
Kelly has also represented the family of Rowan Thompson who died while an inpatient at a mental health unit in Prestwich.
In addition to this, back in January, Kelly was promoted to partner at Farleys after more than 13 years with the firm, working her way up from joining as a trainee solicitor.
Kelly joins Farleys’ crime team, who won crime team of the year back in 2015, in winning a prestigious Manchester Legal Award.
To find out more about the work Kelly and our inquest team do, please visit our inquests page or read about some past cases here.