comercrawley solicitors

Case study 1

A claim that comercrawley has recently concluded illustrates the potential pitfalls and difficulties in dealing with faceless law firms that are appointed for you under the terms of a legal expense scheme.

Mrs C was involved in a nasty road traffic accident some 4 years ago. At that stage she was living and working in Essex. She suffered multiple soft tissue injuries. Liability for the accident was accepted by the other side's insurance company and Mrs C had a solicitor appointed for her under a legal expense scheme based in Merseyside.

Initially matters proceeded quite satisfactorily and some modest interim payments were obtained to cover the costs of physiotherapy treatment and some loss of earnings. A year after the accident Mrs C moved to Norfolk. The conduct of her claim became unsatisfactory. Her appointed solicitor never met or discussed the claim with her in any detail and in failing to do this overlooked a major part of the client's potential losses relating to damaged career prospects and loss of future earnings.

In particular at the time of the accident Mrs C was about to embark upon a career as a social worker, the injuries suffered in the accident prevented, or at least significantly prejudiced, her ability to follow her intended career path. As a result her solicitor failed to formulate a proper claim and the claim that was initially presented to the court was substantially under valued. Mrs C was then put under pressure to settle her claim for a few thousand pounds.

Fortunately she refused to go along with this advice and sought a second opinion from comercrawley. Some fifteen months and a considerable amount of work later the claim settled for in excess of £100,000. comercrawley had personal contact with the client, took the trouble to listen to what the client had to say and then formulated a proper claim based on what the client's true losses were going to be. The future loss of earning claim alone was in excess of £60,000, a point that had simply been missed by her former solicitors.

It is essential to have a solicitor that you can trust, one who will listen to you and one who can give you the specialist advice that you need.

Mrs C says "With the legal expense appointed solicitors I felt that no-one was interested, no-one wanted to talk to me, I was a problem and they just wanted my case settled and out of the way at any price. I could not believe the difference when I changed solicitors to comercrawley who had been recommended to me. Suddenly I was important, I had someone who was prepared to listen and understand. Nothing was too much trouble".