Peter Brash, Grigor & Young, APIL Senior Litigator Not every solicitor handles personal injury claims but, more importantly, not every solicitor who handles personal injury claims is a specialist. In previous posts, we have explained why you need a specialist personal injury solicitor, preferably local to you, to handle your claim for you; and how the Law Society of Scotland’s Accreditation scheme is one badge of recognition of skills beyond the ordinary in particular areas of law, such as personal injury. How else can you tell whether a solicitor is going to be up to the task of handling your claim? Membership of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) APIL is a not-for-profit organisation set up over 20 years ago to encourage accident prevention and assist accident victims through campaigns and lobbying. It has over 4,300 members, most of whom are UK-based solicitors. APIL’s headquarters are in Nottingham. The culture of the Continue Reading
Choosing a Solicitor to Help with your Personal Injury Claim
How do you go about choosing someone to help you with a personal injury compensation claim?
How do you even know if you need help?
What if there's a 'friendly' insurer (the other person's insurer) offering to help you sort out your claim?
What if they're offering to set you up with a solicitor to run your claim for you? Why would they do that? What's in it for them.
The numerous articles here cover issues which come up when you're thinking about choosing a solicitor to help you with your personal injury claim.
Please also see our main page on Choosing your Personal Injury Solicitor
How To Choose a Personal Injury Solicitor in Scotland
In another article, we saw how proven specialist knowledge in a particular area of law is probably the most important factor when you are looking to get help from a solicitor - assuming you do not already have a solicitor or a good recommendation from a close friend or relative. In this article, we discuss how best to go about choosing a personal injury solicitor in Scotland. How to establish a solicitor's 'proven specialist knowledge' in relation to personal injury claims If you have been injured in an accident and need to make a personal injury claim in Scotland, how do you go about finding a solicitor with the necessary specialist knowledge? Lots of solicitors' firms - and others who are not solicitors - claim to have the necessary experience and expertise to handle your compensation claim, so what you need is an independent benchmark of excellence to give you confidence that you are trusting your claim to a safe pair of hands. Law Society of Scotland specialist Continue Reading
Accident Claims: Choose Your Solicitor (rather than having one forced upon you)
We are often contacted in situations where you, as the injured person, have been in touch with your insurers following an accident and they have recommended particular solicitors to you to deal with your claim. Situations where insurers recommend particular solicitors The types of insurance scenarios here include cover under motor insurance, house insurance and legal expenses insurance. It seems to be regularly the case that you will be left with the feeling from your discussion with your insurer that you have “no choice” but to go along with what they suggest. The solicitor is effectively appointed for you. They will probably not be local to you. You can choose your solicitor In truth, you do have a choice. First of all, you need to understand that many insurers have commercial relationships with the solicitors they recommend or appoint. The firms in question are often large and will delegate the bulk of the work on your case to non-solicitors. Secondly, as a Continue Reading
Can I Choose My Own Personal Injury Solicitor?
The answer is generally “yes”. Please read on for an explanation. In many situations if you have been injured as the result of an accident, you will have other property losses that will be insured and you will be contacting your insurers to claim for those. The most common example is road traffic accidents. Your car may well have been damaged and you will contact your insurers to see about repairs or a replacement vehicle. Your motor insurers will these days usually ask you if you have been injured in the accident. If you have been injured, they will refer you on to a specific law firm as if it is “the normal thing to do”. It is important to be aware that there is a financial relationship between the insurers and the solicitors they recommend to you. The relationship operates on the basis that the insurance company agrees to pass on all their claims to the solicitors and the solicitors pay a referral fee for the privilege. It means that the recommendation is not necessarily Continue Reading
Your personal injury claim solicitor: the difference between winning and losing?
Terence Connelly suffered a serious injury to his arm. He fell while playing tennis on a carpeted court at a leisure centre in Renfrew. One of his feet got stuck in the surface and he fell heavily. It appears that he had on the wrong kind of tennis shoes. It turned out there was a special type of shoes he should have been wearing, though he did not know that at the time. Mr Connelly made a personal injury claim against the leisure centre. He pointed to the fact that, following the accident, signs were put up at the centre stating: “Non-marking smooth-soled tennis shoes on carpet courts”. His action was unsuccessful in the Sheriff Court before first the Sheriff and then on appeal to the Sheriff Principal. He further appealed to the Court of Session but that appeal also failed. He conducted all three hearings in the case himself. In essence, the claim was unsuccessful because the various judges did not feel able to say that, on the available evidence at the date of the Continue Reading