OK, so you’ve had a car accident – in most cases, you won’t even have entered your information on any websites before you will be inundated with call after call from solicitors and claims companies wanting you to make your claim with them. If you do enter your details on to a website, be prepared for a barrage of calls!
But how do you find a good personal injury lawyer for your car crash? What is a good lawyer and how can you tell the people you are speaking to are good lawyers?
Follow this simple set of rules and you should be able to find the answers you need!
Avoid Claims Companies
Only make enquiries with real law firms. In all fairness it can be hard to tell who is a real lawyer based on the face of their website, as a lot of claims companies have the word “lawyer” in their name. Just to put your mind at ease, we are an actual law firm ourselves and we’re fully regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Claims companies will pass you round to other lawyers and it will commonly either end up in a fee or an extra percentage you lose from your payout, or a backhand referral fee from the solicitor to the claims agent. Referral fees are now actually illegal by the way, so keep that in mind.
Simply stamp out the middlemen and approach a law firm directly. Ask them right form the start if they are a real law firm. You don’t need to speak to an actual solicitor, but as long as it’s an actual law firm you are speaking to, the advice should hopefully be right.
Most claims companies have to put that they are regulated in respect of claims management activities on their website and will have a number that starts with “CMC…” – so look out for that as well.
Avoid the Cold Callers
As I said earlier, you put your details in to one website and you can expect a flood of calls from all sorts of companies, and some of these may be solicitors firms themselves. It isn’t above board to cold call, but information is easily passed around. When making enquiries, keep a specific note of the name of any firms you have enquired with and make sure you ask a caller who they are and how they got your details before speaking to them. Some will try and fob you off by saying you have spoken to them or you have been referred by someone you have enquired with, but if you only make enquiries with real law firms, that shouldn’t be the case.
Put it this way – why would a real law firm who can actually represent you for your claim pass your information to someone else who will end up dealing with the case? That would be like Asda telling you to shop at Tesco – nuts!
Avoid the Standard 25% – and Pay Nothing Upfront!
Due to government legal fee reforms, lawyers now take a percentage from your claim as we cannot recover all of our legal fees from the other side, and the level of fees is set very low. It’s all a part of the government trying to cut out the “compensation culture” although that is a myth in itself, and you shouldn’t take media fuelled rubbish like that to heart when making a claim. But ultimately keep in mind that most will take 25% (the maximum a law firm can take for a Success Fee which can’t be recovered) and ask for payments upfront as well.
We have a far more competitive offer and there are certainly no upfront fees to pay for. The level of compensation you can get has been increased by 10% to offset people now being charged but 25% would still be an approximate real loss of around 15%!
Speak to a law firm and make a decision
Speak to law firms and go with the one you feel the most comfortable with and the one who offers you the best and most comprehensive advice. Ask questions and make sure you feel comfortable before going ahead.
Don’t ever go direct to the insurers though – deductions or not, statistics prove that you get up to four times more compensation with a lawyer so you’re maximising your payout with a law firm even if there is a deduction!
