Personal Injury Lawyers UK

Personal Injury Lawyer

If you’ve suffered a personal injury and are seeking compensation it may be necessary to seek legal help. This should be seen as a last resort as it can be both expensive and time consuming but if you’ve exhausted all other possibilities then you’ll have to go to a lawyer. Personal injury lawyers are numerous and finding one should not be difficult. The Law Society, a Citizen’s Advice Bureau or your local Law Centre should be able to help you start your search.

The first legal advisor you will have contact with will be a solicitor. It is sometimes worth contacting three of four different solicitors and explaining your case and seeing what they say. It’s essential to have confidence in the solicitor you appoint, as they will be in charge of your case. They will be in charge of getting all the relevant information together to support your case and appointing any experts they think you’ll need. If it’s a complex case you might well end up with a team of people working on the claim.

If the case goes to court it is likely that a barrister will be instructed to present your case in court. Recent legislation has allowed solicitor’s increasing rights to act as advocates in court but barristers are still commonly used as they have specialist skills. Obviously the barrister will be crucial to the success of your case but unfortunately you have little choice about the barrister your solicitor chooses. If your solicitor is experienced in personal injury cases they will normally have particular barrister’s chambers they work with so they should be good.

The exception to this is if the police are involved and decide to prosecute. For example in cases of drunk or dangerous driving they will pass the case on to the Crown Prosecution Service and you will have little say in the case. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority may offer you an award of damages and they have a fixed set of tariffs to cover all injuries. Otherwise the case will be heard in Civil Courts. If your claim is for less than £50,000 you will have to go to the County Court; if it’s more than that then it will be heard in the High Court.