Meet The Team
Nicola Kitchener
Nicola and Sue are the two directors of Affinity Law, having founded the firm in 2008 with a vision to support injured people and to make a difference to people’s lives that have been devastated by all types of injuries. Since then, Nicola has gone on to win hundreds of cases and secured millions of pounds of compensation for her clients, obtaining awards of £27 million for her clients in 2022 alone. Nicola specialises in high value catastrophic injury and complex brain injury claims and has been approved by the national charity Headway as a specialist Head Injury Solicitor since 2018. Nicola is proud to be recognised as Leicestershire Law Society’s Solicitor of the Year 2017 alongside her charitable work raising money for various organisations supporting those affected by brain and spinal injuries. Nicola’s clients are at the heart of everything she does, always going above and beyond to get the outcome they deserve, both through compensation and rehabilitation.
Sue Roberts
Sue and Nicola are the two directors of Affinity Law, having founded the firm in 2008 with a vision to support injured people and to make a difference to people’s lives that have been devastated by all types of injuries. Sue has more than 30 years’ experience as a personal injury lawyer and has dealt with thousands of claims providing rehabilitation and recovery of over £30 million for her clients. She will visit clients at home and hospital and enjoys supporting her clients throughout the claims process. Sue specialises in road traffic collision claims including serious injury claims for vehicle occupants as well as pedestrian, pushbike and motorbike claims and she also pursues cases against untraced and uninsured drivers. Sue also deals with employers’ liability and public liability claims. Impressively, Sue was one of the first 100 Legal Executives from across the country to become a partner in a law firm and the first ever in the East Midlands and was invited to the Houses of Parliament to celebrate her achievement.
Connie Kitchener
Connie joined Affinity Law in June 2016 on a part time basis while studying at university. After her graduation in September 2018, she became a full-time member of staff working as a Paralegal then Trainee Solicitor, and was named Leicestershire Law Society’s Trainee Solicitor of the Year 2022 for her outstanding work during this period. More recently, Connie passed the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and is now a fully qualified Solicitor. In her role, she oversees a caseload of complex catastrophic injury claims. Impressively, she was promoted to Assistant Director a little over a year after qualifying in recognition of her first-class performance. Connie is sympathetic, personable and has a real passion for making a difference to the lives of people affected by serious injuries.
Debra Morris
Debra opened our Derby office in September 2018 where she has worked as a Senior Solicitor since, specialising in high value catastrophic injury and complex brain injury claims. Debra has more than 25 years’ experience working in personal injury and has secured well over £35 million for her clients since then. More recently, Debra has been promoted to Assistant Director in recognition of her outstanding achievements. Alongside her work in personal injury, Debra also acts as a professional financial deputy appointed by the Court of Protection for clients who don’t have capacity to manage their own financial affairs. Debra is proud to be recognised as a specialist Head Injury Solicitor by the national charity Headway, and as an Accredited Brain Injury Specialist and Senior Litigator by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. Debra also dedicates much of her time to Headway Derby, a local charity working to improve the lives of people affected by brain injury, where she acts as Chair.
Alex Burdett
Alex is a Senior Associate Solicitor at Affinity Law having joined the firm in 2021 with 20 years’ experience working in personal injury. She has extensive expertise in dealing with employers’ liability, occupiers liability and product liability claims, as well as experience in dealing with road traffic collision and clinical negligence claims.
Diane Norwell
Diane was one of the first members of staff to join Affinity Law and oversees all the finances and accounts, a job she has diligently done since January 2009. Diane’s day to day role includes managing finances for both Leicester and Derby offices, making payments to clients following successful settlements, overseeing payroll and reconciling various client accounts with large sums of money.
Dionne Willis
Dionne joined Affinity Law in June 2019 as a specialist Litigation Executive and has since worked exclusively in the catastrophic injuries department, directly supporting Nicola Kitchener with claims of a high value. Day to day, Dionne’s role involves providing regular updates to clients, instructing medical experts to prepare reports, preparing trial bundles and much more. Dionne’s proudest achievement is supporting Nicola to obtain a clinical negligence settlement for £11 million, the largest clinical negligence compensation sum secured for an Affinity Law client to date.
Fran Houston
Fran heads up the clinical negligence department at Affinity Law, where she has worked as a Litigation Executive since graduating in January 2019 and started with Affinity Law in January 2020. Fran has an unrivalled passion for clinical negligence work and is quickly able to analyse the issues at hand while ensuring that the client’s case is dealt with as efficiently and sensitively as possible, with no stone left unturned. Fran prides herself on her sympathetic manner and excellent listening skills, ensuring clients are always put at ease during what can be a very worrying time.
Holly Bowen
Holly is a dedicated Litigation Executive who began her career at a Top 50 law firm working in the complex injury department. She joined Affinity Law in 2021 to further her career and continues to deal with exclusively high value and complex personal injury claims directly supporting Nicola Kitchener. Holly has expertise in the analytical side of complex claims and her meticulous attention to detail ensures her clients receive the best results.
Jules Oliver
Jules joined Affinity Law in 2011 where she first worked as a Legal Assistant and now as a Paralegal, supporting Sue Roberts to deal with low-value road traffic collision, employers’ liability and public liability claims. Jules often undertakes much of the background work to help progress client’s claims and is a fountain of all knowledge when it comes to navigating the Ministry of Justice Portal, playing a vital role in overseeing the progress of claims in the early days.
Katie Morris
Katie has worked at the Derby office assisting Debra Morris in dealing with financial deputy matters since June 2021. Within her role as a Court of Protection Paralegal, Katie oversees a case load of more than 15 deputy clients, carrying out general housekeeping duties to ensure the smooth running of all deputy operations. Day to day, her role involves making applications to the Court of Protection, liaising with clients, their families and professionals, reconciling clients’ accounts, making payments and much more. Katie is undertaking an undergraduate degree and diploma before sitting her Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) in the hopes of qualifying as a solicitor.
Millie Kitchener
Millie worked as a dental nurse and a dental clinic manager for a number of years where she gained a wealth of experience dealing with complaints at the surgery before joining Affinity Law in February 2022. As a result of this, she became interested in clinical negligence and wanted to help people wherever and however possible. Currently working as a Paralegal, she assists the head of the clinical negligence department in dealing with all types of clinical and dental negligence claims. Her proudest achievement so far is assisting in securing a settlement in a fatal clinical negligence claim. Millie is planning to qualify as a solicitor and is currently undertaking her undergraduate degree before sitting her Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).
Lucie Prusinski
In August 2022 Lucie joined Affinity Law as a Paralegal working in the catastrophic injuries department assisting case handlers in dealing with disclosure, preparing chronologies, liaising with experts and more. More recently, she has joined the clinical negligence department and is undertaking a hybrid workload of clinical negligence work whilst maintaining her involvement in the catastrophic injuries department. Lucie also heads up the case management team, ensuring all treatment notes and invoices are received, paid and passed to the case handler to consider. Lucie says she loves this niche area of law and the satisfaction it brings helping clients at the most challenging time of their lives which has inspired her to embark on her Legal Practice Course (LPC) on a part time basis to further career in qualifying as a solicitor.