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by Eversheds LLP

Personal Injury Solicitors – Finding One To File Your Personal Injury Claim

Did you know that hundreds of thousands of people sustain personal injury as a result of road accidents every year? Many of those people are victims of someone’s negligence and could benefit from the help of a personal injury solicitor.

If you have ever suffered from a personal injury resulting from a road accident you will know that the impact goes beyond just physical and emotional. Every accident has financial costs: medical expenses, lost wages and property damage. There is no reason why you should have to add these costs to the already traumatic experience if you were not to blame for the accident.

Nonetheless, most of the time the victims of personal injury do not file a claim to get what they are entitled to. They instead seek assistance from their life partner, family, or friends, but why should the person or entity responsible for all the costs not be the one paying?

If you find yourself at a loss due to to someone’s else negligence, you should get the advice of a personal injury solicitor, who can help you figure out how much compensation you can expect, and how long it might take to receive it. The question is, with so many personal injury solicitors offering their services, how do you know which one to choose?

Firstly, look for referrals. Have any of your family, friend or work colleagues filed an accident claim in the past? Tell the people you know about your plans to claim personal injury; maybe they know someone who has had the same experience and can refer you to a particular solicitor.

If you cannot get a referral from anyone, then you will need to do a bit of research. Look for solicitor and lawyer offices around your town and make a shortlist a list. Also, do some searches on Google for the name of your town plus the keyword phrases “personal injury” and “personal injury solicitor”.

Ideally, you want to look for a solicitor who specializes in personal injury claims. As a rule of thumb, people who specialize in something do a better job than generalists. If you want to get the maximum amount of compensation, you should therefore look for a solicitor or a firm that has dealt with many personal injury claims in the past.

Another indicator that a solicitor is serious about your claim is that he or she will offer a no-win no-fee arrangement. This means that the solicitor will only be paid if you succeed with your claim. This situation means that you have absolutely nothing to lose; you either get paid compensation, or you are no worse off than you were before filing the claim.

To summarize, it is not easy to find a personal injury solicitor that will offer both experience and a no-win no-fee injury claim service, and guarantee that you will get the compensation that you deserve, and that the person or entity responsible for your accident will think about it twice before committing negligence again, but it is definitely worth putting in the effort looking for one.

by Eversheds LLP

Is It Possible To Find A Reliable Personal Injury Solicitor?

The reputation of personal injury solicitors has once more been blighted by the recent case of the two solicitors who managed to make £30.2m from sick miners. With the firm’s partners being struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, it is inevitable that the reputation of their profession will suffer.

The solicitors firm in question handled 10,000 miners’ claims under a government compensation scheme for sick miners. However, the pair were found to be charging conditional fees on top of those provided from the scheme, resulting in grostesque profits which earned one of the solicitor’s the title of Britain’s richest lawyer in 2008.

The two solicitors successfully exploited thousands of miners, the government’s scheme and a legal system which honors legitimate compensation claims, all for personal gain. The damage done to the reputation of personal injury solicitors by these two will be only further compounded by a Solicitors’ Regulation Authority investigation (SRA) into 40 other law firms who handled miners’ claims.

However, the disciplinary actions of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal gives a clear message to personal injury solicitors or individuals tempted to exploit the justice system’s allowance for compensation claims. The strong judgement of the tribunal, which found the pair guilty of eight out of the 11 allegations lobbied against them, suggests a zero tolerance stance towards those tempted to dishonestly profit from the misfortunes of others.

The readiness of the tribunal to exclude the two solicitors from their profession, alongside the other solicitors who corruptly profited from the miners’ compensation claims, demonstrates active regulation of the legal practise which should go someway towards restoring faith. Individuals wishing to make a compensation claim should not need to worry about the honesty of their legal representative; it should come as standard.

However, cases such as that of these two partners does little to instil confidence, and the actions of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal come far too late to be of real comfort to the miners who were subject to the malpractises of the pair.

Nonetheless, the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal has demonstrated that dishonesty in their profession will not be tolerated. And despite the negative press, it is still possible to find an honest personal injury solicitor to handle compensation claims. While the case involving the two solictors highlights that corruption still plagues the personal injury claims field, there remains a large quantity of personal injury solicitors who serve a valuable role.

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