Our commitment to providing  quality service

Overriding principle

When pursuing your personal injury claim, this firm will always act in your best interests so long as this does not conflict with our duty in law or to the Court. We will do this even if your interests are contrary to our own. If you believe that this overriding principle is not being upheld you should notify us immediately.

Dealing with your claim

We will firstly send a letter of claim to the defendant or his representative.  In most cases, the defendant then has 21 days to respond to our letter of claim.  Then, in most cases, they or the defendant’s insurers will have a further 3 months to admit or deny liability to your claim.

In the event that liability is admitted, we will obtain such medical and/or other expert evidence as is necessary to value your claim and, once the valuation is agreed with you, attempt to negotiate a settlement with the defendant’s representative.

In the event that liability is not admitted, the defendant’s representative must provide to us documents relating to your claim and state why liability is not admitted.  We will consider these documents with you, and if necessary with a barrister, to consider whether or not your claim is likely to be successful.

If we are unable to reach a settlement with the other side where liability is admitted, or, where liability is denied and after full consideration as above, we believe your claim still has good prospects of success, we will discuss your options further with you.

When looking at your claim, we will consider whether the value of the proposed action will justify the costs involved and advise you accordingly.

It is difficult to estimate the timescale involved to complete a matter for you as it does depend on the course that it takes.  However, if liability is admitted within 28 days and we agree a settlement figure, the timescale to completion is likely to be in the order of 6 months in lower value cases.  If, however, liability is not admitted and we have to issue Court proceedings, the timescale to completion might be in the order of 12-18 months.

Action You Need to Take

In a personal injury case in addition to your injury you may suffer financial losses such as, loss of earnings, travel costs, medical costs and so on. There are, of course, many other financial losses you may suffer. It is therefore, important that you keep details of all these items and keep safe any documents and receipts you may have in support of your expenses, so that, if possible these losses can be recovered for you. You must also remember to try and reduce the cost to the Defendant where it is reasonable and possible. If your landlord is not repairing your property you should take pictures with dates and also recording when you contacted them.

Legal Expenses Insurance

We will discuss legal expenses insurance with you when we take details of your claim. We will ask you to provide us with details of any motor, credit card or home insurance policies etc. that you may have so that we can see whether or not these contain a policy of legal expenses insurance that will cover the legal costs in relation to your claim. Funding may also be available through a trade union or professional body of which you are a member. If you believe such funding may be available, please discuss this with us further. This is very important as you may receive more of your award if you have legal funding available to you.

In the event that you do not have legal expenses insurance, you may decide to obtain a policy. We can help you decide whether this is something you wish to do so please ask for advice. Prices start from around £35 to £600 depending on the case, and you can pay for this out of the award at the end of your case. In short, litigation insurance covers you against the cost of the Defendant’s legal fees in the event that you don’t get more than an offer made during your case. Without legal insurance you could win your case and still receive no compensation if you do not win more than the third party had already offered you. With litigation insurance you will normally receive your award even if you do not beat an offer that has already been made to you.

We would remind you, however, that we are not insurance brokers and cannot advise on the competitiveness of legal insurance policies. If you wish us to obtain a policy or you obtain one yourself through a third party let us know. If we believe that in the circumstances of your case it would be beneficial to obtain such a policy, we will discuss this with you at the appropriate time.

Other Funding Options

Click here to see our no win no fee page for an explanation of the most popular way of funding a claim.

Unfortunately, Legal Aid is no longer available for personal injury compensation claims.

You may wish to pay us privately for your legal costs. In some cases paying privately may be financially beneficial if you can afford to do so as we do not then have to charge you a success fee. If this is something you wish to consider, please discuss this with us.

Our arrangements with Third Parties

We do not enter into any arrangements which may prejudice our ability to act independently and in your best interests.

Discrimination

This firm operates a policy on the avoidance of discrimination and the promotion of equality and diversity in the delivery of our service to you, including the instruction of counsel and experts in all professional dealings.

Data protection

This firm is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and in order that we may provide you with legal services, we need to record and maintain certain factual information on personal circumstances, which we may hold in hard copy or in electronic form.

We may use all the information that we hold, including sensitive personal information relating to your health, your racial or ethnic origin, trade union membership and criminal convictions for the purpose of providing our services and maintaining records about you that we must keep by law or under regulatory requirements.

We do not pass any information about our clients to third parties for commercial exploitation. We will pass your information to other parties where it may be necessary or beneficial in completing the work for which you have instructed us, or where we have to disclose information to other parties because of our legal or regulatory requirements, or to prevent fraud or money laundering. We are at times subject to assessments from external organisations that may review your file to ensure that we maintain our professional standards. We will assume that we have your permission for this unless you advise us in writing to the contrary. We may use information we hold about you in relation to our own marketing activities and to inform you about products and services we offer.

In addition to the information that you provide we may also obtain information about you from other individuals, partnerships, companies or other organisations.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you are entitled (on payment of a fee and subject to some exceptions), to a copy of the information we hold about you. If you would like this information please contact the person in charge of your matter in writing, stating what personal information you wish to access. No personal data is held for a period in excess of 7 years.

Disability

We understand that it may still be difficult for people with some types of disability to visit us. Should you wish to see us and have a disability or problems getting around we will come out to visit you in your home or make other arrangements that are suitable for you. We make no extra charge for this or any services that we offer to help access to clients with a disability.

If you suffer from a visual or hearing handicap please call or email and we will make reasonable adjustments to help you.

Terms of Business

A full copy of our terms of business will be provided for your agreement.  These contain full details of our complaints policy and our service commitment along with other provisions which govern the agreement between us.