The lawyer whose name is synonymous with group litigation, Martyn Day has made his name with a series of group claims — notably the tobacco litigation — involving injury to health or the environment: cases include Sellafield leukaemia and the Japanese prisoner of war claims, for which he negotiated a settlement of £200 million. At Leigh Day & Co., the firm he set up in 1987, he heads a team of 20. Recent actions include representing 1,300 Kenyans injured or killed by British Army munitions and claims in Colombia against BP over damage caused to farms from the laying of an oil pipeline. He was also heavily involved in the asbestos claims for thousands of South African and Swazi workers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He remains active among Labour lawyers and is also a director of Greenpeace Environmental Trust and the author of several books. Despite the failure of the tobacco litigation he remains dedicated to ensuring equality of arms for claimants in such cases — and would like aspects of the US class action imported here.

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