Expertise
Our experience in civil litigation has developed a sizeable personal injury department. We have represented claimants (and defendants) in a wide array of personal injury cases from road traffic accidents to medical negligence against NHS trusts.
This department leans on our extensive experience in civil litigation which allows us to best represent you in your compensation claim for an injury you sustained due to no fault of your own.
Expert legal advice on a personal injury claim can provide financial redress for injuries sustained or avoid incurring unecessary financial loss when it will be difficult to establish liability.
What is Personal Injury?
Simply put, a personal injury claim will usually arise from circumstances where you, a loved one or someone you know has sufferred an accident, illness or injury that was caused by someone else’s negligence. The below listed matters are some of common instances in which we have represented clients:
- Road traffic accidents (drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists)
- Accidents at work (falls, manual handling, machinery accidents, lack of safety equipment)
- Slips, trips and falls in public places or private places where public liability insurance covers the injury
- Medical negligence (surgical errors, misdiagnosis, poor treatment etc.)
- Industrial disease and workplace-related illness (hearing loss, asbestosis etc.)
- Serious or catastrophic injury (brain, spinal or life-changing injuries)
- Claims against public authorities or local councils (pavement defects etc.)
- Claims involving assaults or criminal injuries (separate from Criminal Injuries Compensation claims which is offerred here)
Main Stages
- Initial Consultation & Instructions – taking your instructions, understanding the accident and its impact, reviewing available evidence, and advising on funding options.
- Investigation – gathering evidence, instructing medical experts to report on injuries, and obtaining advice on the likely value of the claim (quantum) where needed.
- Letter of Claim – sending a formal claim to the negligent party (usually their insurer) and awaiting their response on liability.
- Negotiation – engaging with the defendant’s insurer or representatives, considering settlement offers, and seeking interim payments where appropriate.
- Court Proceedings – if liability is denied or settlement cannot be reached, issuing court proceedings and preparing the case with expert and barrister support.
- Settlement or Judgment – reaching an agreed settlement or obtaining a judgment in court, and ensuring compensation is received and accounted to you.
Complicating Factors
While we do our best to avoid your matter becoming too complicated, at times this is unavoidable.
The following factors can result in a more complicated case than first anticipated and it is important that you are aware of them:
- Existence of preliminary issues (eg whether the claim is presented within time)
- Amending your claim or defence
- Providing further and better particulars (eg if you approach us after issuing the claim yourself)
- The number of parties in the case
- Making and Defending interim applications
- The level of disclosure involved in the case i.e. documents served by each party
- Number of witnesses being proposed by each party
- Special requirements
Pricing
All costs given on our website are only indicative of a typical case. We will assess each case based on its own complexities, merits and foreseeable costs.
Fee Structures:
Our most common fee structure in this department is ‘hourly rate’ and is charged at our solicitor’s rate of £300 + VAT in line with HMCTS guidance for solicitors’ with more than 8 years’ experience.
Alternative fee structures can only be explored with consideration of your specific case. Rest assured, you will be advised on whether are alternative methods available to you when you seek to instruct us at a consultation with the solicitor.
For information purposes this can either be a:
- Conditional-Fee Agreement – commonly known as ‘no win, no fee’ in which you pay us a success fee at the end of the case (typically no more than 25% of the damages you recover)
- Damages-Based Agreement – in which you pay an agreed percentage of the damages you are awarded by a court, employment tribunal or through agreed settlement with the employer/employee once that award has been made.
Timescales
You may be wondering how long your matter will take from first instructing us until the conclusion of the case.
This short answer is that the timescale of your case will depend on the stage at which the conclusion takes place.
If the case settles prior to issuing court proceedings and during the ‘out-of-court settlement’ phase then it is can conclude within a few months.
However, if the court claim is issued but settles at judicial mediation then the case may take up to 6-9 months.
In the event that the case proceeds to a final hearing, it is likely that your case may take up to 1 year (or longer depending on when the court can accommodate a hearing date for your case).
Of course, the timescale is not rigid and will depend on many factors including the complexity of the case, the nature of injuries, how quickly the other side accept liability, the number of witnesses involved and potentially other factors.