Chaynee Hodgetts

Barrister & Honorary Lecturer in Emergency Medical Law, Queen Mary University of London
A criminal defence and inquest practitioner, with a reputation for looking at cases differently, and her focus on each client as an individual. Chaynee practises predominantly in crime and inquests. Her further sub-specialisms include forensic science, maritime criminal law, maritime inquests, Higher Education inquests, and medical and mental health inquests. She currently accepts instructions nationally, with a focus on London and North Wales.

Chaynee is an Honorary Lecturer in Emergency Medical Law at QMUL and the Blizard Institute – and has been involved with providing legal teaching on their MSc Emergency & Resuscitation Medicine since 2019.

Chaynee is also Honorary Lecturer in Criminal Law (Department of Law), and Honorary Lecturer in Medicine: Medical Law (Department of Medicine) at Bangor University.

She was the second contributor to the 5th edition of the leading national Undergraduate textbook in Criminal Law – Smith, Hogan and Ormerod’s Essentials of Criminal Law – assisting the principal author, Professor David Ormerod CBE KC.

Prior to practice, Chaynee spent over a decade as a University Law Lecturer and academic, teaching Criminal Law, Evidence, and Media Law, working as Head of Admissions for Law (Law Admissions Tutor), and as Director of an Innocence Casework Unit.

As a member of Middle Temple since 2012, she was Called to the Bar in 2019, and qualified as a Pupil Supervisor with Middle Temple in 2024.

She is the Adviser (Lay Non-Medic) in Teaching & Learning and Examinations for the Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath), and Full Member of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences (BAFS).

She is also a member of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), the Inquest Lawyers’ Group (ILG), the Female Fraud Forum, the Honourable Society of Middle Temple, the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS), Women In Criminal Law (WICL), the Peer Review Panel of the International Journal of Emergency Services (IJES), and a Fast-Track Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Before lecturing, she was a Deck Rating in the Merchant Navy, and, as a member of the Cruising Association, Young Cruisers’ Association, Royal Burnham Yacht Club, and Bar Yacht Club, she maintains a keen interest in getting afloat whenever possible. Her seagoing qualifications and experience also provides useful insight in trials or inquests in maritime cases.

Chaynee also has a keen interest in pre-hospital care and pre-hospital emergency medicine. In addition to her legal work in this area, she successfully completed the British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) Pre-Hospital Emergency Care (PHEC) Course, and is now an Associate Instructor on the PHEC. She is also a First Responder with GoodSAM for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. Again, her qualifications and experience in pre-hospital care also provide valuable additional insight in trials or inquests of a medical nature.