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Thomson Wilks welcomes insurance litigator and medical law expert Julia Penn
Innovative firm Thomson Wilks Inc has announced the arrival this week of experienced attorney Julia Penn as a Director in its Cape Town office.
Specialising in insurance litigation and medical law, new Thomson Wilks Inc Director Julia Penn has over fifteen years’ experience advising hospitals, insurers, and medical professionals in South Africa and internationally.
She has expertise in medical negligence, healthcare regulation, and risk management, and brings sharp legal insight and strategic perspective to complex matters involving patients, insurers, and healthcare providers. Julia is skilled in complex litigation, governance, and regulatory compliance, and regularly advises on risk prevention, regulatory obligations, and ethical issues in healthcare.
Speaking with Africa Legal last year, Julia shared how her family background plus a realisation while lying in a hammock in Guatemala sparked her early-career pivot to focus on medical law and healthcare ethics, including studying for an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics online through the University of Edinburgh back in 2011.
“My mother is a nurse, my dad a doctor, and one of my siblings was a GP,” she said. “So I come from a background of a lot of dinnertime conversations over medical issues and healthcare.”
Julia’s work includes conduct inquiries, inquests, disputes and healthcare reviews across obstetrics, surgery, ICU, and emergency medicine. She regularly appears before bodies like the HPCSA and SANC, and contributes through training, speaking engagements, and published commentary on medical legal issues.
In recent years, Julia has been a Director and Board member at Fairbridges Wertheim Becker Attorneys, the oldest law firm in Africa, along with serving as Legal Counsel to her alma mater the University of Cape Town’s Human Research Ethics Committee, and being appointed to the TerraLex NextGen Advisory Committee.