Personal Injury Claim - Solicitors or DIY?

sparky0138

My mum's had a fall and broken her nose after tripping over a faulty water meter plate. She wants to apply for compensation but doesn't want to use a "no win, no fee" company if she can just do it herself. She has CCTV proof and is currently waiting for medical records of her visit to A&E.

Would a DIY claim be advisable or should she get professionals to sort it? Does anyone here have any experience of a DIY claim? Thanks.

Brie

Who's property was this?  Public land?  Suing the council?  Friend did a DIY claim against our council for paving stones that had shifted causing a trip hazard.  Part of the success of his claim was that the council already knew it was a problem and had sprayed some bits to show where the repairs were needed but not the actual bit adjacent that he tripped on.  

If mom does want a solicitor of some sort best to check to see if she has any legal cover - might be via a motor or home insurance policy or possibly through work or a union or similar.

TELLIT01

If she has legal cover on home insurance I would let them do it.  My wife recently had a bad fall which was potentially the fault of the owner of the premises she was in.  I called my insurer with a brief outline, and they are handling it from here on.

sparky0138

Thanks. It was on a public footpath. The gentleman that came to check on her said he worked for the council and that she should complain to them as it's their responsibility to keep public footpaths safe but when I contacted the water company and asked who was responsible for water meter plates they said it was them.

She doesn't have legal cover with the house insurance and the legal on her car insurance doesn't cover this type of accident. She's also retired so nothing through work.

Happy_Kitties

I’ve  done a DIY claim and even though I won it is a heck of a lot of work. I don’t have a legal degree but a consumer degree, there is a lot of pre court protocol work to do and your mum would have to go through the council complaints process first before anything else and then maybe go through their appeal process if she doesn’t agree with their response.

I’m just doing another one that I didn’t want to do involving clinical negligence but no solicitor would take it on as other agencies nearly timed me out on the limitation period. Again i had complain through internal complaints process, then pre court protocol (justice. gov has some great advices and templates and then court form which I’m just waiting for back. Fortunately this one won’t get to court, the company’s insurers want to settle out of court but that is only because I have solidly had to present a case but I’m out of my depth on how much to settle on so my advice with this your mum’s case is to get a solicitor if you can unless you are prepared to do the spade work which I would also only recommend if you have solid evidence……it makes your life so much easier.

sparky0138

Happy_Kitties said:

I’ve  done a DIY claim and even though I won it is a heck of a lot of work. I don’t have a legal degree but a consumer degree, there is a lot of pre court protocol work to do and your mum would have to go through the council complaints process first before anything else and then maybe go through their appeal process if she doesn’t agree with their response.

I’m just doing another one that I didn’t want to do involving clinical negligence but no solicitor would take it on as other agencies nearly timed me out on the limitation period. Again i had complain through internal complaints process, then pre court protocol (justice. gov has some great advices and templates and then court form which I’m just waiting for back. Fortunately this one won’t get to court, the company’s insurers want to settle out of court but that is only because I have solidly had to present a case but I’m out of my depth on how much to settle on so my advice with this your mum’s case is to get a solicitor if you can unless you are prepared to do the spade work which I would also only recommend if you have solid evidence……it makes your life so much easier.

Thank you for your opinion and for sharing your experience. It sounds like you're pretty competent and yet you didn't find it straight forward. I think my mum has decided to go the way of solicitors. I've done a bit more research and I don't think either of us are capable of pursuing it ourselves to be honest.

TELLIT01

Many solicitors will give a free consultation to see if there is a decent chance of winning a claim.

Happy_Kitties

sparky0138 said:

Happy_Kitties said:

I’ve  done a DIY claim and even though I won it is a heck of a lot of work. I don’t have a legal degree but a consumer degree, there is a lot of pre court protocol work to do and your mum would have to go through the council complaints process first before anything else and then maybe go through their appeal process if she doesn’t agree with their response.

I’m just doing another one that I didn’t want to do involving clinical negligence but no solicitor would take it on as other agencies nearly timed me out on the limitation period. Again i had complain through internal complaints process, then pre court protocol (justice. gov has some great advices and templates and then court form which I’m just waiting for back. Fortunately this one won’t get to court, the company’s insurers want to settle out of court but that is only because I have solidly had to present a case but I’m out of my depth on how much to settle on so my advice with this your mum’s case is to get a solicitor if you can unless you are prepared to do the spade work which I would also only recommend if you have solid evidence……it makes your life so much easier.

Thank you for your opinion and for sharing your experience. It sounds like you're pretty competent and yet you didn't find it straight forward. I think my mum has decided to go the way of solicitors. I've done a bit more research and I don't think either of us are capable of pursuing it ourselves to be honest.

I hope everything goes okay for your mum and you do get it sorted.
with the claim I won the hardest part was when I did a subject access request, getting basically half a tree delivered, going through it all, even with stuff blanked out bec of data protection, I found some of the stuff written about me upsetting and I just had to keep pushing through. That took me a week alone. I did have a preliminary hearing in court, judges are obliged to treat you equally so even though the defendant tried to get the case thrown out 4 times the judge refused. I knew the case inside out, I still prefer pen and paper so had all my notes set out while the defendant and solicitor just had their laptops. 

I wasn’t phased bec I was so busy listening to the judge to find out the next stage and courts like alternative dispute resolutions which my defendant wasn’t keen to do. But I knew a weakness with the defendant that could work in my favour, took a gamble and it paid off but I had taken free legal advice through a university student/solicitor placement over the phone who said I had to be damn sure to pull off what I did but I was 150% sure. I had previously taken it through the ombudsman and the one thing I had found with the ombudsman is defendants are not afraid to lie and the only way I could prove they were lying was to take it to court anyway. Even though the ombudsman response was based on inaccurate information I still used it as supporting evidence as it was still in my favour, 

with the medical negligence I am just doing now, again I have rock solid evidence which is the defendants own evidence I am using against them. But to prepare I still spent hours going through different medical acts and legislation to see what was relevant and appropriate to the case and had to report the defendants originally to official bodies that encouraged me to pursue it. Even though I can’t get a solicitor on board and the defendant does want to settle out of court, the severity and amounts are unchartered waters for me and I have found that where you can get a great source free info with universities and law students using you as a case study or on placement with a solicitor, these free services are so over subscribed.

I agree with Tellit01 and to get a free consultation with a solicitor. It will take the stress out of it if nothing else,……that I can’t recommend highly enough!