Welcome to our Durham personal injury solicitors guide. If you’re here looking for County Durham personal injury solicitors because you’ve been involved in an accident, then look no further. Legal Experts are specialist personal injury solicitors who can deal with any accident claim as long as somebody else’s negligence caused it.
When considering making a compensation claim, you must get a high-quality injury lawyer to help with your claim. This guide will show you how to choose the right solicitor, what types of claims can be made, how to claim, and how to make use of our No Win No Fee service.
How our solicitors can help you claim compensation
You may feel quite nervous about making a personal injury claim, especially if it’s against your current employer. Still, you shouldn’t worry as claimants are protected due to the expanse of supporting legislation, and there are systems in place to support you in making a claim.
Legal Expert can help make your claim, and our team of solicitors are experts in personal injury legislation who can help identify if somebody else was to blame for your injuries.
We’ve been offering advice on the claims for many years and know what is required to make a successful compensation claim.
Do I have a compensation claim?
Several things have to be proven to win a claim for an accident in County Durham, which are:
- That the person you are claiming against (the defendant) had a duty of care to you.
- That the duty of care was somehow breached by the defendant (or their staff).
- That, because of the breach, you were injured or became ill.
We advise that you begin your claim as soon as possible so that your solicitor or lawyer has as much time as possible to gather and collate evidence to support your claim. The more time your Durham personal injury solicitors have to handle your claim, the more likely it is to be successful.
How to find the right solicitor for your claim
Choosing the right solicitor is essential and could mean the difference between winning or losing your case (or affect the amount of compensation you receive).
A competent personal injury solicitor will advise you of what legal action should be taken (and what shouldn’t be done), will know the best legal and medical experts to use to support your claim and will be able to offer advice to you even with complex and difficult cases.
Legal Expert have a panel of experienced personal injury solicitors who have been involved in compensation claims for many years. They know what is required and what isn’t to make a successful claim for damages.
Personal injury solicitor reviews
Many solicitors will provide examples of reviews from previous clients, and these can be essential reading when choosing the correct solicitor for your claim. There are things you can look for that may be relevant to your claim and can be good indicators of a solicitor’s ability to win cases, such as:
- How many reviews are positive and enthusiastic about the solicitor?
- How many cases has the solicitor won recently?
- Are the clients happy with the compensation amounts they received?
- Do the solicitors tend to win larger amounts than other solicitors?
It is always worth noting any individual names of particular solicitors that have dealt with cases similar to yours or who often receive high praise from their clients.
All of these can be used to assess the quality of the potential solicitor. Some of our reviews can be read here.
Your solicitor can be based anywhere
Just because you’ve had an accident in County Durham doesn’t mean that the solicitor who makes your claim needs to be based there. A UK solicitor will communicate with clients over the phone, postal service and emails, which means the office’s location is irrelevant to the claim process.
That said, to avoid our clients from having to travel excessively, we’ll always arrange any medical assessments or appointments in the County Durham area. You can find out more by speaking to our Durham personal injury solicitors today.
What compensation claims can our personal injury solicitors can help you make
The next few sections will show the common types of injuries and accidents that personal injury solicitors deal with regularly. Legal Expert can deal with any claim from the most severe and complex injuries to more minor but still painful accidents. This table shows what compensation you could potentially receive for different injuries as per the Judicial College guidelines.
| Injury | Severity | Notes | Compensation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brain Damage | Very severe | The person might be able to follow some basic commands. However, they will need full-time care and show little meaningful response to their environment. | £282,010 to £403,990 |
| Neck Injury | Severe | A neck injury that is associated with incomplete paraplegia or results in permanent spastic quadriparesis. | In the region of £148,330 |
| Knee Injury | Severe (ii) | Constant pain and limited movement caused by a leg fracture that has extended into the knee joint. | £52,120 to £69,730 |
| Arm Injury | Less severe | The person will have suffered with significant disabilities. However a substantial recovery has taken place or is expected to. | £19,200 to £39,170 |
| Back Injury | Moderate (ii) | Frequently encountered back injuries, that disturb the ligaments and muscles and cause backache. | £12,510 to £27,760 |
| Shoulder Injury | Serious | A dislocated shoulder with damage to the lower part of the brachial plexus that causes shoulder and neck pain. | £12,770 to £19,200 |
| Elbow Injury | Moderate or minor | Elbow injuries such as lacerations, simple fractures or tennis elbow syndrome. The recovery rate will affect how much is awarded. | Up to £12,590 |
| Leg Injury | Less serious (iii) | Simple tibia or fibula fractures, or soft-tissue injuries, with minor ongoing symptoms. | Up to £11,840 |
| Whiplash Injuries With Psychological Injuries | One or more | Lasting for 18-24 months | £4,345 |
| Whiplash Injuries | One or more | Lasting for 18-24 months | £4,215 |
To go into further detail, though, the common injuries that are claimed for include:
Advice about industrial disease claims
Industrial illnesses or diseases can be hidden from claimants for many years and slowly get worse. You may not find out about them until visiting a doctor many years after the root cause began.
Some industrial illnesses that we deal with include Acoustic shock, Mesothelioma, Repetitive strain injury (RSI), Industrial asthma and Vibration white finger.
To be eligible to make a compensation claim against your employer for these illnesses, it would need to be proven that the employer was negligent in some way, for instance: if they didn’t provide adequate training, adequate equipment or if they failed to make changes when a concern was highlighted to them.
Advice about medical negligence claims
Medical negligence occurs when you become injured, or an illness is made worse when attending a GP surgery, hospital, dentist or undergoing surgery. Medical negligence can be claimed when undergoing medical or cosmetic surgery.
Causes of medical negligence can include:
- Misdiagnosis of an illness or condition.
- Incorrect prescribing of medicines.
- Delayed referral to a specialist or for an operation.
- Delayed response to test results.
- Surgical negligence.
All of these can be reasons to claim the County Durham and Darlington NHS foundation trust (in the case of claims against an NHS establishment). We have written a more thorough guide to medical negligence, which can be found here.
Medical negligence claims can be particularly complex and can take time to resolve, so it is always worth beginning your claim as soon as possible. If you are unsure if you’ve got a valid claim for medical negligence, then please call our Durham personal injury solicitors today for an assessment of your case.
Accident at work claims in County Durham
If you’ve been injured while at your workplace (or elsewhere but completing work tasks), then your employer may be liable for your injuries if it can be shown that they’ve breached their duty of care to you.
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, there are requirements for an employer to ensure the safety of their staff. At the same time, at work and expectations, they provide adequate training for any tasks, proper safety equipment, and a general safe working environment.
If you believe your employer could’ve prevented your accident at work in County Durham, please get in touch with one of our team members.
Advice about slip and fall claims
Slips and falls are among the most common types of personal injury cases because they can happen in just about any scenario. When claiming for a slip or fall, the key thing is that the accident must’ve been preventable and caused by someone else’s negligence.
Several things could be proven negligent and cause a fall, including Uneven or damaged flooring (potholes, broken kerbs, damaged paving slabs, etc.), slippery or wet floors with no warning signs, and invisible trip hazards due to poor or broken lighting.
Our panel of experts can seek personal injury compensation for a slip or fall on your behalf so, if you believe your accident was caused by somebody else, please get in touch today about how to claim online.
Advice about serious injury claims
Defining how serious an accident is can be tricky because it may impact different people in several ways. Still, essentially, anything which is said to be life-changing can be deemed serious.
If a claimant has to change the way they live their life or has to give up doing a job they’re skilled to do, this could also be a serious personal injury claim.
Injuries that can lead to a serious designation include paralysis, brain damage and amputations. And our Durham personal injury solicitors can handle claims for severe, life-changing injuries such as these.
County Durham road traffic accident claims
Road traffic accidents in County Durham can lead to compensation claims when somebody else is to blame. Suppose you’ve been involved in a car crash or collision where somebody else caused the accident, and you were driving, a passenger or a pedestrian. In that case, we can help with a claim on your behalf against the driver’s insurance company.
This page details what is being done to reduce road traffic accidents in the County Durham area.
How many people have suffered a serious or fatal injury in County Durham
Under health and safety reporting regulations, all local authorities have to report serious accidents and fatalities. The table below shows these statistics for the County Durham area for the past 3 years:
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Other | 10 | 13 | 7 |
| Car | 91 | 74 | 99 |
| Motorcycle | 49 | 29 | 35 |
| Pedestrian | 34 | 48 | 43 |
What are No Win No Fee or contingency fee agreements
No Win No Fee claims are a safe way of claiming compensation, and you do not have to stump up any cash to begin the case.
A No Win No Fee solicitor will usually start with a free consultation where they’ll ask the client questions to determine what happened in the case, what injuries were sustained and determine if somebody else was to blame.
Following this, they’ll prepare a No Win No Fee agreement, check the case is sound legally, and then begin gathering evidence to support the claim.
When the claim has been prepared, they’ll send it to the defendant explaining how much compensation the injuries are worth and why they believe the defendant is to blame.
When the defendant, or their solicitor, replies, the solicitor will liaise with their client and recommend the next course of action: to accept an offer, reject it, ask for more compensation, or take the matter to court (which is very rare in our experience).
Finally, the Durham personal injury solicitors will pay their clients after deducting their agreed fee from the compensation payment.
Make a claim with our 100% No Win No Fee service
The beauty of a No Win No Fee agreement, for the client, is that if the solicitor is unsuccessful and doesn’t receive any compensation, then they don’t have to make any payment for the solicitor’s services.
If compensation is awarded, the solicitor retains their agreed percentage (success fee) and sends the rest to the client to compensate for their injuries.
Many clients wouldn’t be able to claim if the No Win No Fee process wasn’t available due to the hourly rate that some solicitors charge. No Win No Fee takes away the risk of ending up with a legal bill even if you don’t win compensation.
This guide gives full details of how no win no fee works.
What else might I need to know before making a claim?
We understand that you may still not be ready to begin your claim today and require further information. If that’s the case, don’t worry, as this website has plenty of useful guides that may have more specific information about the type of injury you sustained in County Durham.
If you still need advice, please call our team of specialists (contact details are below) who can offer you advice about what steps you should take next to prepare for making your claim.
Contact our team now
Now that you’ve finished reading this guide and know about our No Win No Fee service, you’re hopefully ready to begin your claim today. If so, there are several ways to get in touch with our Durham personal injury solicitors:
- Telephone: Give our team a call on 0800 073 8804 today.
- Email: Send a message to office@legalexpert.co.uk
- Online: Fill in this online form with the details of your accident, and we’ll call you back at a time that’s convenient for you.
- Live Chat: Our advisors are available from any page of our website.
Whichever method you choose, our panel of experts will be able to offer advice and begin your claim with a free consultation where we can gather information from you about how your accident happened.
Resources for claimants in this area
If you’ve had an accident in County Durham, then, as well as making contact with us at Legal Expert, you may need to contact these organisations as well (police, courts and hospitals). We’ve listed their contact details for you:
Local Police Station
Durham City Police Station
New Elvet
Durham
DH1 3AQ
Tel:101
Web:www.durham.police.uk
Local Crown Court
Durham County Court
Green Lane
Old Elvet
Durham
DH1 3RG
Tel: 0191 375 1840
Web:https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov.uk/courts/durham-county-court-and-family-court
Local Hospital
University Hospital of North Durham
North Road
Durham
County Durham
DH1 5TW
Tel:0191 333 2333
Web:www.cddft.nhs.uk/our-hospitals/university-hospital-of-north-durham.aspx
Here are some more guides from our site which may be relevant to your specific injury or accident:
Personal Injury Claims is a detailed, step-by-step guide that explains exactly how the claims process works.
Slipping on wet floor claims – a guide that shows how much compensation you may receive when slipping on wet floors.
Whiplash claims – our guide that shows the injuries and amount of compensation involved in whiplash claims.
Durham Personal Injury Solicitors FAQs
What is a good settlement offer?
This is an offer that meets around 80% of the claimant’s compensation target expectations.
What is the likelihood of the case making it to court?
Only around 5% of claims end up in front of a judge.
So, what is the likelihood of winning a medical negligence claim?
For those with strong evidence supporting their case, the odds of winning such a claim are around 50%.
On that note, what is strong evidence?
This would include witness statements, CCTV footage, photographs of the scene and also a medical evaluation.
What is the significance of the medical report?
This emphasises the victim’s condition and potentially confirms the link between the accident and their injuries.
What if the victim has already previously had a medical assessment?
Thye would still require an up-to-date assessment to ensure that an independent doctor comes to the same conclusions.
Do I need to hire a solicitor for my case?
You can go it alone, but it’s advisable to have a solicitor to enhance the credibility of your case.
When can I begin my personal injury claim with the help of Legal Expert?
You can get in touch today to officially take the first step towards receiving compensation.
Other Useful Compensation Guides
- City of London Personal Injury Solicitors
- Clacton-on-Sea Personal Injury Solicitors
- Coatbridge Personal Injury Solicitors
- Colchester Personal Injury Solicitors
- How To Claim Personal Injury Compensation
- Coventry Personal Injury Solicitors
- Craigavon Personal Injury Solicitors
- Crawley Personal Injury Solicitors
- Crewe Personal Injury Solicitors
- Crosby Personal Injury Solicitors
- How Much Compensation Could You Receive for a Slip or Trip Claim?
Thank you for reading our Durham personal injury solicitors guide.
