Personal Injury Lawyers and their Responsibilities

Although lawyers of personal injury firms are required to be licensed and skilled to work through in effect any area of law, they tend to only operate through cases that lie within the realm of tort law. This includes, but is not restricted to: motor vehicle accidents, work injuries, medical errors, faulty/ defective products, trip/ fall accidents, and many more.

There are various responsibilities personal injury lawyers have in helping their clients. It is the duty of the personal injury lawyer to interview, examine and evaluate their prospective clients and cases to establish the legal issue at hand. Personal injury lawyers are also required to indentify the important matters entrenched within the claimant’s quandary and to comprehensively investigate all issues to develop a strong claim.

A personal injury lawyer’s most important professional responsibility is to assist claimants to gain the compensation and justice they warrant for their damages and losses in the course of legal advice, counselling, advocacy and oral arguments.

Personal injury lawyers are required to comply with a stringent format of legal ethics, when serving his or her clients. The primary codes of conduct maintain that a lawyer ought to proficiently assess legal issues and apply competence in all legal affairs taken on. Furthermore, personal injury lawyers have an obligation to their clients, to protect confidentiality and to establish a sense of loyalty and it is essential to work to safeguard his or her clients’ welfare.

Personal Injury Firms for You

If you are unsure on whether you are able to claim compensation, most personal injury firms provide free legal advice to help people who feel they have a claim. These firms will also help guide you in the course of making a personal injury claim.

The fees of personal injury firms do vary, however a vast amount of firms do operate on a no win, no fee basis. It is advisable when choosing a personal injury firm, to select one which provides a no win, no fee pay structure, to avoid extra legal cost. It is always important that you are 100% aware of all the conditions when signing a contract and making an agreement.

Another important point to make and another vital factor in deciding and choosing a personal injury firm or lawyer is to ensure that the company or lawyer specialises in the particular claim you want to make, and more importantly you are satisfied with that. Remember all lawyers are different and so are all the claims to be made and it is your duty to make sure you are happy and comfortable with the lawyer’s approach and support for you. It is crucial that you have total confidence of their ability, as well as their trust.

Things to avoid when signing an agreement

Many personal injury firms misleadingly present themselves as a firm of solicitors. It is imperative, when signing an agreement with a firm that you certify that the company you are signing for is in fact a firm of solicitors, as oppose to a referral business, the likes of which are controlled by non-lawyers and are not best suited to help you with your claim.

Referral businesses often deceptively advertise themselves and they do lack the expertise and knowledge that professional personal injury lawyers have, to help you with your claim.

Be sure before making any agreement that the person you are dealing with is a professional personal injury lawyer, with which you are completely happy with to help you make your claim.

 A poll recently conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers indicates that teachers lead stressful professional lives with long working hours, increased workload and constant fear of patronising inspections from the authorities. The research is based on 1,300 teachers working in state and private educational organisations across the UK.

THE POLL RESULTS

The poll revealed that 1 in 4 of those questioned took sick leave or leave of absence due to work related stress. Shockingly, 40 per cent of the respondents visited a doctor. The number of doctor visits is shocking for two entirely different reasons. Firstly, it is sad and surprising that teachers have to visit their doctors due to work related issues. Secondly, before the new sick pay schemes were introduced, every person taking a sick leave was obliged to present their employer with a doctor note. It can be argued that, the current one week self-certification model can be easily abused by those claiming to be off sick. On the other hand, the poll proves that overall levels of dissatisfaction with the profession are quite high, with more than 58 per cent of those questioned actually considering changing their careers entirely. One Manchester based tutor stated that she would like to visit her GP but is prevented from doing so by lack of support and sympathy from her more senior colleagues.

CAUSES OF STRESS

According to the poll there are various reasons for increased absences among teachers. The main sources of stress appear to be: excessive supervision, fear of making a mistake and being downgraded as a result of such.

Teachers complain about lack of objective assessments and state that most evaluation inspections are based on single lessons that are unlikely to provide true picture of overall performance. In addition, approximately 30 per cent of schools do not have procedures for dealing with mental health and well-being of their staff.

OFSTED REPORT LEEDS HILLCREST PRIMARY SCHOOL

A prime example demonstrating the above problems is the Hillcrest Primary School in Chapeltown, Leeds. Here, on average staff members take three weeks of sick leave per annum (based on the year of 2011/2012).To make this even worse the report reveals that another 221 days can be added on top of the 1,208 days, due to staff taking further leave of absences.

The main victims of the increased teacher absences are pupils. The Ofsted report states that between the school years of 2010 and 2011 nearly 40 pupils in that school were disciplinarily punished for physical abuses. Alarmingly, 1 in 3 of the pupils were younger than 10 years of age.

The quality of education is not of the highest standard as well being classed as ‘significantly below the national average in reading and writing’. The teaching practices were described as mostly inadequate.

Although, the report points out some interest facts about levels of stress, raising stress-related absences among teachers and poor quality of education; it is important to observe lack of resources that schools are battling with. In the abovementioned school of Hillcrest, 429 pupils are taken care of by only 65 full-time members of staff with only 24 full-time teachers and 58 support staff. Alarmingly, vast majority of those pupils come from troubled areas.

Incredibly, despite incidents of attempted fraud and a significant rise in claims for personal injury LV, the fourth largest car insurer in the UK, have announced that their annual profits have more than doubled with a 23% rise in premium income, bringing the total figure up to a staggering £1.46 billion, and a total figure of £72.1 million in trading profits.

Although LV’s overall return is down by 2.9% to 2.8% when compared to the 2010 figure of 5.7% it’s still a pretty impressive figure, especially when you consider that personal injury claims have virtually doubled in the past few years.

The managing director of LV, Mr. John O’Rourke, said that, for every ten insurance claims made today, four would be for personal injury compared to ten years ago when just two out of ten claims would be personal injury claims.

Mr. O’Rourke believes that a number of these current personal injury claims are being made by opportunists but also states that it can be incredibly difficult disproving fraudulent claims.

However, despite a particularly challenging past 12 months, Mr. O’Rourke is pleased with the resulting figures achieved by the company.

LV says it’s whole aim is to quickly settle valid claims whilst making it more of a challenge for claims of a fraudulent nature to slip through the net and, with an estimated £2 billion worth of fraud within the insurance industry, this is no easy feat.

Fraudulent claims for whiplash seem an increasingly popular choice and, on average, personal injury claims involving vehicles are costing over £1,660 to settle every minute.

These figures don’t seem to be ruffling LV’s feathers and, with their substantial increase in profits, LV was able to create 500 new jobs last year alone. It appears that this is one insurance company that will continue to go from strength to strength.

Fraudulent car insurance claims unfortunately have an impact on not just the insurance company providing the cover but also genuine customers by leaving insurance companies with little choice but to increase insurance prices to cover their costs. At least that’s what the insurers say. Some insurance companies have been accepting referral fees at one end for referring claims, whilst at the other end putting up premiums citing personal injury claims as the reason they have to increase premiums.

LV are no strangers to fraudulent car insurance claims having had their fair share of bogus claims in the past so what steps does this popular UK insurance company now take in order to help safe guard against car insurance fraud?

LV utilise a number of different databases to check all car insurance claims and all new insurance policies against and these include:

• The Motor Insurance Database or MID. The MID is used to track down uninsured drivers and has been successful is considerably reducing the number of uninsured drivers on the roads. This database is also utilised by the police force.

• Insurance Hunter. The Insurance Hunter database is designed to detect and prevent fraudulent crimes such as money laundering and identity theft.
  

• The Motor Insurance Anti-Fraud and Theft Register. This database holds the details of all vehicles which have been either written off or stolen.
  

• The Claims and Underwriting Exchange or CUE. This database is run by Insurance Database Services Ltd and holds the details of the majority of UK claims made for both home and car insurance.
  

By utilising these databases LV are able to filter insurance claims more accurately and, by sorting ‘the wheat from the chaff’ so to speak, have been able to keep their premiums at the lowest prices possible.

Whiplash is a contentious subject bearing in mind allegations that it is often either made up or grossly exaggerated as an injury, due to the fact it is a muscular injury and therefore difficult to disprove. When thinking of whiplash we also tend to think of car crashes and typically, rear end shunts.

In an interesting recent case, a very overweight bus driver suffered an injury when a chair he was sitting on during a tea break broke. The bus driver in question is apparently claiming up to £75,000.00 and you might ask how on earth such an accident might equate to such a large claim. The answer to this is that in addition to a claim for general damages for pain and suffering for the whiplash injury, the individual is claiming the injury caused severe depression which in turn means that he has a claim for special damages for ongoing loss of earnings. This aspect (the special damages) is what makes claims potentially much higher since general damages for pain and suffering under English law are in reality quite modest.

The local papers in Sheffield are reporting this week that the Deputy Lord Mayor is making a personal injury claim against a Tenant’s Association. Is there any reason why he shouldn’t ? Do you think the image of ambulance chasing lawyers creates an incorrect perception  and that there is no reason why a claim should not be made, whether by a senior establishment figure or anybody else ?

Apparently, the injury was suffered when the Deputy Lord Mayor sat on a chair which collapsed under his weight. IT is not known whether the Deputy Lord Mayor is a particularly large or heavy individual and this is perhaps an unusual claim in that sense. Whilst a duty of care would have ben oweed under the Occupier’s Liability Act, unless there wqas soenthing wrong with tha chair which was or ought to have been known to the Occupiers, it is far from certyain the claim would succeed at trial.

The Deputy mayor, who will take over from the current Lord Mayor in the next few months declined to comment on the basis that the matter is with his legal team.