To be honest, the thought of a chemical burn is pretty frightening. If you have ever seen the film Fight Club, you might know what I mean. But when it happens to someone, and you are badly injured as a result, what can you do?

As with any situation, if the injuries or accident were caused through no fault of your own, but through the fault of someone else, you may be able to make a claim for personal injury compensation. With chemical burns, this is particularly important as the damage done, both superficially and internally, can be significant.

We have seen many instances of what chemical burns can do to people. We have seen the devastating effects it can have on a person’s life; and that’s why we are here to fight for justice for anyone injured through no fault of their own. There are naturally a lot of things to consider:
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We get a lot of enquiries from people who have been persuaded by insurers to deal with their personal injury claims directly with them. It’s a common problem in the claiming industry, and it’s known as Third Party Capture. Basically, the insurers of the party at fault will contact the innocent victims direct and offer to deal with the personal injury claim without solicitors.

They will tell you that it’s quicker, easier, and you’re cutting out the middleman; and by claiming directly with them, they will give you a little more money as they will save themselves a fortune on not paying legal fees.

But what you have to ask yourself is, in the grand scheme of things – why would they do this?

It’s literally all about saving money. I doubt very much that they will offer you an extra £1,500, which is generally what the solicitors’ legal fees will equate to. In fact, it’s unheard of as far as I’m aware. But the main thing you have to realise, which is something you might not have considered, is the fact that you have nobody fighting your corner for the case. In fact, you entirely at the mercy of the insurers who are liable to compensate you.
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We all reply upon equipment to do our jobs; some more than others, depending on the type of work you do. One thing I can confidently say from personal perspective is that I personally cannot stand most equipment! We rely upon it to do our jobs, and then it never works right and always breaks! Yes computers – I’m looking at you!

I won’t pretend to know too much about computers, but what I do know is they love to crash, break, and cause an absolute nuisance to us guys who rely upon them! Although I must admit I’m currently sat at a colleagues desk with a huge chip on my shoulder, writing this blog because our server is having serious issues and it’s fallen upon my personal computer as the one that our techie server guys are using to try and resolve the problems.

But back to the point of work equipment claims – when I’m talking about compensation claims, I’m talking more about people being injured as a result of faulty or inappropriate work equipment; not the stress caused when your networks and servers go haywire! In many industries, work equipment can be very dangerous indeed; with exposed machinery, cutting tools, extremely hot heating machines, etc.
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Cosmetic surgery is becoming increasingly popular with youth today due to the ‘need’ to look good and therefore there has been a noticeable rise of claims resulting from cosmetic surgery.

The issue of cosmetic surgery has been in the media this week with the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons calling for a ban on advertisement for cosmetic surgery to those under the age of 18. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons want to prevent celebrities advertising the surgery who may be idolised by youth and to prevent all special offers on surgery as a way of protecting the vulnerable and discouraging people with the full process. 

The Government has taken real note of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons request and has announced that the Department for Health will be reviewing the regulations concerning cosmetic surgery. Already there have been twelve recommendations which have been sent to advertising regulator, the Committee of Advertising Practice, to consider.
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Often at the outset of a claim people will want to know how much compensation they are likely to receive. Solicitors can sometimes give very basic and straightforward estimates but at the outset you should be aware that it is impossible to value a claim with any accuracy.

Any value given is simply an estimate which cannot be relied upon. If you understand how claims are valued then you will realise why Solicitors cannot give accurate valuations at the outset.

So how are personal injury claims valued?
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For many reasons I imagine – but all generally revolving around one thing – legal expenses insurance (hereafter referred to as LEI)! For actual law firms like us, there is nothing more disheartening than when clients are taken in by this system and ultimately potentially deceived. LEI is a straight forward system but benefits usually only two groups of people – the insurers and solicitors!

Legal expenses insurance involves your insurers (like your car insurers) SELLING your details across to a solicitor who will then use a percentage of their costs to pay for your details in the first place. For example: a solicitor may pay your insurers £1,000.00 for your details which is then taken away from the amount of funds they have to run your case. The next question of course though is how does this make your claim go slower?

Less funds =  less phone calls, letters and less work being done on the case. Importantly – less fighting for the highest payout and therefore LESS compensation for you!
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This is indeed a very important but tricky question. It is often best explained in the form of a scenario. Say for example you are in your local supermarket stocking up on those essential goods and you are unfortunate enough to slip on a wet floor.

Now, if there is a clearly visible wet floor sign in place which you should have seen, then it could be difficult to claim compensation for any injuries that you sustained. However, every case is unique and studied on its own facts. Say for example a wet floor sign was erected and was clearly visible but you failed to notice it because you were looking down at your mobile phone as you were walking. In this situation a Court would probably say that the store took all necessary precautions to warn you of the hazard and therefore there was no potentially negligence.
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This is a common question and one that has a pretty straight forward answer. However, there isn’t a fixed time period and the reason for this will hopefully become apparent below…

Of course, the first thing that happens after your medical appointment is that a medical report is compiled and sent across to the solicitor. Your solicitor should chase this if it is taking longer than usual, but there can be delays at this point simply because the third party is not as speedy as we would hope them to be.

So the first bit of advice would be to take this into account and not be chasing a medical report the day after an appointment.  In the same way, once your solicitor discloses the medical report to the other side and invites offers, we will chase for a response but one cannot control another’s actions.
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In today’s vast market it can be difficult to find a Solicitor who you can trust to run your claim. There are so many choices as there are so many personal injury law firms.

From my experience, most firms are run in different ways and have varying structures. We have procedures in place to put us ahead of other personal injury law firms. We have to keep ahead of other law firms to allow us to represent as many clients as we can! Here we have a motto that the clients (i.e. you) are the lifeblood of our organisation.

Without clients and claims we would not be here. This is why we put clients at the forefront of our minds throughout the case. We endeavour to make sure our clients are kept regularly updated as to the progress of their claim.
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The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations govern the standards required by all workplaces to ensure optimum health and safety in the workplace. Accidents at work are unfortunately more common than people think! They can occur in a variety of ways, depending on the type of work someone does and the area which they are based in. This article will mainly focus on office spaces.

Under the regulations a workplace is defined as “any premises or part of premises which are not domestic premises are made available to any person as a place of work“. The regulations also cover the means of getting to and from the designated area, for example: rooms, lobbies corridors and staircases.
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