Brain Injury Claim Solicitors

Brain Injury FAQs

• How do I make a brain injury claim?

  Every brain injury claim is unique, and we’ll carefully review your case details to ensure we achieve the best results for you. The five main steps for making a claim are:

  1. Get in touch

  For a free, no-obligation chat about a claim for you, your child or loved one, contact us on 020 7288 4800.
  or use our online brain injury enquiry form.

   

  2. Funding options

  If we think there is a claim, we’ll provide you with advice about the best funding arrangements, which could include “no win, no fee” agreement.

  3. Rehabilitation 

  We notify the party likely to be responsible for the claim and request that they fund the support required to meet your or your loved one’s needs, including rehabilitation.

  4. Obtaining records

  We’ll request all relevant documents to help us identify what happened, whether anyone’s wrongdoing may have caused or worsened the injury, the nature and severity of the injuries and the impact on you and your loved ones. This will include medical records and any accident/incident records or reports.

  5. Expert opinion

  If the records support the claim, we will instruct medical and/or other liability experts (e.g. accident reconstruction experts or engineers) to prepare reports about the case.

  6. Letter of claim

  Once we have supporting evidence from all experts, we’ll write a formal “letter of claim” to the individual or organisation responsible for causing or worsening the brain injury.

  Find out more about the brain injury claims process.

   

• Who will pay my legal fees?

  If we think you have a strong claim, we will find a way to fund it for you. The four main funding options available are:

  1. ‘No win, no fee’ agreement, otherwise known as a Conditional Fee Agreement

  2. Legal Expenses insurance

  3. Legal Aid

  4. Paying privately

  Find out more about the funding options available and partner organisations who can help.

   

• What happens if my claim is successful?

  Protecting your means-tested benefits

  Your financial circumstances change when you receive compensation after becoming seriously injured. This means your means-tested benefits may be at risk. However, you can protect your entitlement to benefits by setting up a personal injury trust. Our specialist brain injury solicitors will be happy to advise you if this is relevant to your circumstances.

  Investment advice

  Investing your compensation requires careful thought and often specialist advice. We can recommend an appropriate adviser to help you, if you’d like to pursue this avenue.

  Rehabilitation

  In many claims for head and brain injury compensation, your recovery may be improved by receiving appropriate medical treatment including surgery, rehabilitation, therapy, aides or equipment and professional support at the earliest opportunity, rather than waiting for the claim conclude. We have arrangements with providers of rehabilitation services to ensure your recovery starts as soon as possible.

• How much brain injury compensation will I receive?

  Brain injuries have serious consequences for both the injured person and their loved ones. No amount of money can ever truly provide adequate compensation for the devastating effects of a severe head injury. However, compensation can help to manage some of the consequences by funding much needed professional care, accommodation, equipment, treatment and therapy, alleviating financial hardship and improving quality of life.

  The amount of compensation awarded depends on the nature and severity of the injuries, as well as the impact they have on things like earnings capacity and the cost of meeting need post injury both now and in the future.

• What are the time limits?

  There are strict time limits for bringing a claim for brain injury. Typically, the injured person has three years from the date of injury to issue a claim in court otherwise the right to bring your claim will be lost. The time limit will not apply if the injured person lacks mental capacity to bring a claim.

  In some circumstances, it is possible to bring a claim within three years of the date on which the injured person ought reasonably to have become aware that they had a claim. This ‘date of knowledge’ test is subjective and needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. It is therefore important to get advice from a specialist solicitor as soon as possible to avoid falling foul of these time limits.

  When bringing a claim on behalf of a child, you have to issue the claim in court before the child’s 21st birthday.

• What can I do if I’m not happy with my solicitor?

  If you’ve already started a claim with another solicitor, but are unhappy with the service, you can transfer your case to another solicitor. Going through the litigation process can be stressful, particularly if the relationship of trust and confidence has broken down with the solicitor dealing with the claim. If you’d like to discuss moving from your current solicitor firm to a solicitor from Bolt Burdon Kemp, just give us a call or send us a message using our contact form.

  If you decide we could be a better fit for you, we can contact your old solicitor to get all the information we need and transfer your case. It is unlikely that you would have to pay your old solicitor for the time they spent on the claim, usually they agree to wait until the end of the claim to be paid. Find out more about this process in our article on the subject.