Types of Injury

If you have been injured and it was someone else's fault, you may be able to claim - at no cost. First, we will need to have a discussion about your situation and determine how best to help you. In any event, we must be able to establish that your injuries were caused by the accident. This is usually done with medical reports and statements from witnesses. The person who caused the injury must have owed you a duty of care, or had responsibility for your safety.

If you were to blame for the accident then you cannot claim - you cannot sue yourself!

However, a new employee who hasn't been trained gets injured because of doing something wrong, he or she may be able to claim, because an employer has a duty to make sure employees know how to work in a safe manner.

In simple terms Win or Lose you do not have to pay the legal costs of the claim.

If you win your claim, and receive more than £1,000 in compensation for the injury element of the claim, our fees will be paid by the person or insurance company paying your claim.

If you lose your claim, we will have put an Insurance Policy in place for you which will pay the legal costs of your opponent, and the expenses such as court fees and the cost of medical reports. We will not get paid, which is why we assess all claims, and only take on those we believe have a reasonable prospect of success.

The insurance policies we recommend, to protect you, do not have to be paid for until the end of the case. They will pay for themselves if you lose, and the premium will be paid by the people paying your claim if you win. We will not ask you to sign a credit agreement.

Your free no-obligation consultation with a specialist SLP lawyer will help you decide whether you want to make a claim.

From there we gather all of the evidence together, and send a 'Letter of Claim' to the person to blame - the defendant. This is the start of the 'pre-action protocol' and all solicitors follow it. The protocol is set out in the Court Rules, and we must follow the protocol so that your claim gets off to the right start.

At the end of the protocol period - which is nearly four months after the claim was first received by the insurer - the defendant must tell us if they admit or deny the claim.

If the claim is admitted we then instruct a medical professional to formally assess your injuries and prepare a medical report. We also prepare a 'Schedule of Losses' that includes any financial losses that you may have suffered as a result of the accident. Loss of Earnings is an example of what can be claimed. Naturally, we will guide you through this process.

We then seek to negotiate a settlement of your claim.

If the claim is denied, we look at the evidence, sometimes with the help of a barrister, and decide if you still have reasonable chances of winning. If you do, the next step is to start court proceedings, or 'sue' the person to blame for the accident.

From here, what the defendant does affects the claim process, as described in the next section.

Depending on what the defendant does, there are four possible outcomes:

Claim accepted - here the defendant accepts liability for the claim and accepts the blame. We will negotiate a fair compensation settlement on your behalf based on the medical report and other evidence. The claim is valued against published guidelines, previously reported cases, and experience. In complicated cases we ask a barrister to help. You are paid the compensation in full and we recover our costs directly from the other side.

Claim disputed - where the defendant disputes the claim against them. We will have to negotiate hard on your behalf to reach a mutually agreeable settlement. If not, the case will have to go to Court where we will represent you throughout.

The Court will independently make a decision on your claim.

Case Won - the Court has decided that you are entitled to compensation based on your claim and will instruct the defendant to pay an amount that is either agreed or fixed by the Court, plus our expenses incurred.

Case Lost - in this situation the Court will have decided that you do not have valid grounds for compensation based on your claim. You will not be paid anything.

Remember, we work on a 'no-win, no-fee' basis so you will not have to pay us anything.

A number of things have changed over the years:

• Solicitors have been allowed to advertise
• Solicitors are allowed to enter into Conditional Fee Agreements (CFA) - usually known as 'No-Win, No-Fee Agreements'
• Legal Aid was removed for the majority of people who would have qualified for this type of help for personal injury claims.

Solicitors now compete for work with Insurance Companies, and Claims Management Companies.

Insurance companies sell their policyholder personal details to some firms of Solicitors when they report an accident, and dress this up as providing a service to you. In fact, your insurance company may be pocketing hundreds of pounds just for passing your details to a solicitor. They are profiteering at your misfortune.

It makes more sense to go directly to a professional solicitor.

If you are the victim of an accident the insurance company of the person responsible for the accident or one of their agents may contact you trying to get you to settle your claim before you take independent legal advice. This will be dressed up as offering you a service, but is more like a fox offering to help the chickens. It is not a service to you; they are simply trying to cut down what they have to pay you in damages by keeping you away from independent legal advice. It is known as 'third party capture'.

The insurance companies who do this may be in breach of the Data Protection Act. If this has happened to you report the matter to the Financial Services Authority, complain to the Information Commissioner's Office or, if it was a claims management company that contacted you, complain to the Claims Standards Council.

If the accident was not your fault, and you think you may be able to claim, then put your trust in a specialist independent firm of lawyers - SLP Solicitors, and call us now for a free consultation on 0800 917 4644 or +44 (0)20 8420 7950 and speak in confidence to one of our advisors or Email info@slp.uk.com You'll have nothing to pay.