Laura Hadzik
Laura is a specialist road transport solicitor and has extensive experience advising operators of all sizes across the coach, bus and haulage sectors throughout England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Europe.
Her particular expertise lies in the licensing and regulation of commercial vehicles. She is recognised as a market-leading lawyer in this specialist area, has an enviable reputation as the ‘go to’ lawyer for coach and bus operators and one of the country’s leading lawyers representing international operators in cases involving clandestine entrant civil penalties imposed by Border Force.
Laura has a high level of technical expertise and ability and is consistently at the forefront of significant cases for the road transport sector. Her work includes operator licensing advice and applications; public inquiries, preliminary hearings and driver conduct hearings before the Traffic Commissioners; appeals against Traffic Commissioner decisions; DVSA investigations; criminal proceedings (including overloading, maintenance and, often complex, drivers’ hours/tachograph offences); international road transport matters (including cabotage and Border Force cases involving clandestine entrants), bridge strikes, bus reliability and punctuality, PSVAR and BODS matters. Laura also pro-actively advises businesses on best practice compliance through training (she leads JMW’s road transport training offering) and auditing.
Laura is well-known and widely respected across the road transport sector. She is recognised for her unwavering commitment to her clients and their businesses, her passion for the sector, her high level of technical capability and her sector-specific knowledge. She is regularly quoted in the trade press as an expert authority on all matters relating to road transport law, has a monthly Q&A column in RouteOne magazine, speaks at industry events and supports numerous sector-specific initiatives.
Laura is a champion of diversity in the road transport sector and has actively supported the work of Women in Bus and Coach since its inception.
She is recognised by the UK Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 legal directories as one of the leaders in her field and is quoted as being “an excellent solicitor with a passion for the bus, coach and haulage industry which is part of her DNA”, “a wonderful technical lawyer, excellent, sensible advocate and thoroughly great person”, and “a wonderful transport regulatory lawyer with deep expertise and great judgement”. Clients say “she exudes confidence and knowledge in a positive way … she is very popular with clients, large or small” and “her industry knowledge is unbelievable and she has an uncanny knack of communicating what are technical topics in a precise but easy to understand format”.
Laura has won various legal awards throughout her career and was, most recently, recognised by Passenger Transport magazine as one of their “40 under 40: Transport leaders for the 2020s” (the only Solicitor listed!). She is described by Passenger Transport magazine as “a renowned solicitor across the transport sector”.
Laura Hadzik, Road Transport Law – JMW Solicitors
