How Much Is My Personal Injury Claim Worth?
By: Patrick  Jones

Personal injury accidents are by their nature fortuitous.That means it was an uncalled for event that happened not by design but by accident. In most cases it is sudden and the victim also suffers shock from the event.

The thought that comes to most peoples’ minds after suffering the trauma of of personal injury is that I must get a personal injury solicitor. Or the suggestion may come from your partner or a friend wishing you well and to see that you receive compensation for your personal injury  and ensuing psychological trauma.

Everyone is emotionally charged and wishing for some sort of ‘justice’ from the situation. This is particularly true in the case of motor personal injury accidents where your pride and joy vehicle is also all smashed to smitherine. Also you are not looking too good yourself having felt the impact through your whole body and suffered nasty chest trauma injuries from the restraining seatbelt and cuts and bruises to your face and burn injuries from the exploding airbag.

Now everyone is out to get the other motorist involved in the accident and its going to cost him for the personal injury accident was his fault. But what if the personal injury accident was not a motor accident but was instead an accident at work. Let us assume that you work in an office and on the way back to your desk from the coffee machine you tripped over a piece of loose carpet or electric cables and smashed you face against a table as you fell. You also sustained other personal injury and burnt yourself with the coffee you were carrying. You suffer shock trauma in addition to the other personal injury, not to mention the embarrassment from colleagues looking on.

What would be your attitude then about seeking to claim for personal injury  against your employers with whom you have been working now for the past four years and is quite happy with your job? You are on a good salary with perks and your prospects for further progression are quite good. Also you get on very well with your colleagues a number of whom are close friends with whom you socialise outside of work.

In the first scenario you have no hesitation whatsoever in seeking to obtain personal injury compensation from the alleged negligent motorist. However, you now have mixed emotions when it comes to claiming for personal injury against your employer. But you have to make a decision as the ‘limitation’ clock starts to tick straight away under which you have three years in which to claim for personal injury-The Law Reform Limitation Act (1980)-failing which your personal injury claim becomes statute barred, in other words out of time.

There is nothing in English  law to say that you need to instruct a personal injury solicitor to pursue your personal injury claim. That is a personal decision which you can take freely but usually because most people have no idea what to do going forwards with their personal injury claim. They therefore rush to their nearest solicitor office having taken bad advice from friends as to the suitability of their local solicitor to handle their personal injury claim.

They have no idea that solicitors specialise in different areas of the law, for example employment, family, criminal, personal injury etc. Your local law firm may have experience with trauma injury and specialise in personal injury claims but being a small firm of solicitors they have a limited number of qualified personal injury solicitors on their books and so they multi-task meaning that they are responsible in other functional areas such as accounts. So when you suffer a blunt trauma type personal injury accident and go to see your local solicitor about your personal injury claim in question he takes off one of his many other ‘hats’ and puts on his personal injury hat. He may have qualified as a solicitor many years ago and is not up to date or speed in personal injury law but he has dealt with one or two cases in the past.
As a senior solicitor he commands respect from junior staff and charges senior solicitor rates per hour of work requiring his personal time. The charge rate for a senior solicitor in London is £150- £200 per hour. The Law society published rates are available for you to review if you need further information of applicable rates for personal injury work.

You are however allowed the first half-hour consultation wth a personal injury solicitor free of charge under the Green Form Scheme. There is limited or no funding available under legal aid which has been replaced by the ‘no-win-no-fee’ personal injury system.

Your local personal injury solicitor’s costs are structured to show their labour time charge separate from the costs for items of disbursements. The disbursements include medical fees, expert witness costs, counsel’s fees, etc. Their standard charge can be marked up by 100 per cent so that the effective charge rate for example in the case cited above becomes £300- £400 per hour for personal injury work in London. For out of London personal injury costs these are only marginally lower. See your local County Court Cost guide for current personal injury legal rates.

Some personal injury solicitor firms employ junior staff some of whom are perhaps studying for their ILEX exams (Institute of Legal Executive). Therefore you may be dealing with a personal injury para-legal rather than a qualified personal injury solicitor. However, these juniors although not yet qualified still command costs up to £110 per hour for their work.

A lot of the foot work is carried out by junior staff and the senior personal injury solicitor merely cast an eye over the personal injury claim to make sure that everything is ok. However, the firm’s costs may show a breakdown of x-number of hours work by a junior, x-number of hours by an Associate and x-number of hours by a Senior solicitor.

These personal injury law firms also have a habit of running to counsel for advice on the most trivial of personal injury claim. Even in simple trauma personal injury cases they will obtain counsel’s advice on either or both liability and quantum. By quantum I mean the physical injury itself which usually involves trauma radiology or x-ray for deep wound injury close to bones and actual fractures. The personal injury victim in most cases also suffer shock and psychological trauma which forms part of the claim for damages. This pushes up their costs by a huge amount due in most cases to the nature and extent of the personal injury. Counsel’s fees could add £500 or more in a simple personal injury case and £1500 or more in a fairly complex claim.

In London a junior personal injury solicitor could receive a fixed salary of say up to £45,000 pa. An Associate is likely to be on £75,000 plus profit sharing. Your senior solicitor takes the cream at £200,000 per annum plus profits sharing.

On the other hand the average personal injury claimant is earning £13500- £20,000 in London assuming he can get employment in the current climate. So when you go to see your local personal injury solicitor don’t be too disappointed if he is unfortunately detained in his fitness regime on the golf course and cannot see you. His secretary or gate-keeper will advise you that he is with another client but she can take a message and he will get back to you. Don’t take it personal as there are other options available to you.

If you are involved in a personal injury claim at the moment then you may wish to take a look at “The Personal Injury Claims Guide for DIY Claimants”. You will learn from this 50 page information-packed easy to understand and user-friendly guide just what is involved in making a successful personal injury claim. If you proceed to deal with the insurance company direct without such invaluable knowledge then you will be at a disadvantage in terms of winning your personal injury claim or obtaining full compensation for your injuries.
Most solicitors will push to make sure that their clients’ personal injury settlement hits the £1000 mark because that is the ‘watershed’ figure to ensure that they recover their full costs. So as a personal injury claimant who has suffered some form of blunt trauma or personal injury you get £1000 and your solicitor gets fees up to £5000 for the claim.

So whose interests are best served in these circumstances? When you consider the average cost of personal injury claim settlements you will realize that there is no need for a ‘middle-man’ because that is really the role of your personal injury solicitor. And they are not all as highly skilled as you may ‘imagine’ them to be. I have had personal injury claimants on the phone to me in distress over their personal injury claim because they could not get any information from their solicitor and wanting to negotiate their own personal injury claim directly with the insurance company.

However, at that point they are locked into a contract with their personal injury solicitor and are liable for his costs even if they wish to pull out of the contract. Of course, sadly we have to turn them away so that they can first resolve the issue with their personal injury solicitors before we can discuss their personal injury claim with them.
You can save yourself a lot of these hassles by making a small investment in your own education by obtaining your personal copy of ‘The Personal Injury Claims Guide for DIY Claimants’.

After all it’s bad enough suffering the pain and maybe having trauma surgery then going through the healing process which could take several months without you being ’short-changed’ by the insurance company when you submit your claim.
The important point to note is that you do not need to instruct a personal injury solicitor for the majority of personal injury claims. I have personally settled claims for just over £1000 where the costs from solicitors range from £3500 to £5000 and more.

Would it not be a more equitable proposition that you receive a higher level of compensation for your personal injury and the insurance company save money on solicitors’ costs so that they can meet the cost of future claims? I think you and most people would agree this is the best solution.

About the Author:
Patrick  Jones – www.personalinjuryclaimsguide.com – is a Personal Injury Specialist in motor claims and employers liability claims. He has accumulated more than 25 years in the evaluation and settlement of personal injury claims.

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