Injury Claim
Elcato....your suspicions are correct!
Anon.....The process cannot be put on the same level of transparency as purchasing a can of beans in a supermarket. Not all accidents are the same and all injuries are not the same as they affect different people in different ways over different periods of time. You may break your leg in an accident and the injury may be healed and you may return to work within 8 weeks. Another person might not be fully recovered within two years because of medical complications or specific employment effects.
I may write for a medical report from a client's GP and get a reponse within 4 weeks. Other GP's will take in excess of 6 months before such a report will be provided. Consultants can be worse and a client may have to wait 6 months for an appointment for examination.
The age, fitness and healing powers of accident victims will play a part in how long their recovery will take. The eventual award will take into account the level and duration of pain, suffering and loss of amenity suffered by that victim. All these factors and many more make it most difficult to accurately predict how long any case will take or what the final value will be. If you were to ask me how much a broken leg was worth and I responded €15,000, you would be very quick to qualify why your broken leg should be worth more than any old broken leg because of the particular effects you suffered. That is why lawyers try to avoid placing a value on a claim from the outset.
The law is a very difficult and learned profession. It cost me over GB£65,000 to qualify as a solicitor and for several years after that I was earning less than most non-law graduates that I knew. Even today, as an employed solicitor in private practice I earn less than many electricians, plumbers, plasterers and other trades people who come to me for legal advice and services. The vast majority of lawyers will never earn the telephone figure salaries of those legal colleagues featured in the Sunday newspapers, or for that matter reach the level of earnings of similarly high paid farmers and business and media people. Junior marketing personnel in commercial operations earn more than the average solicitor and yet the myth rolls on that all lawyers are fat cats.
It will not fit your mental image of me and my colleagues to know that we give a great deal of out time and effort for no reward. If a person comes to my office with a real and urgent problem and they cannot afford my services then invariably I will advise and represent them for nothing or for whatever they decide they can afford to pay me. At least one third of my clients are not charged an economical fee for the service they receive, but without the assistance that I and many hundreds of solicitors daily provide many thousands of our citizens would be deprived of access to justice. My belief in justice is what brought me into the law, not the prospect of riches. I don't expect you to trust me or to respect me but I am satisfied if you have listened to what I have to say.
By the way, don't hold your breath about PIAB improving things for claimants....but that is another story!!