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Questions About Serious Injury Claims
• Why Shine Lawyers have a serious injury team
• The nature of the injury and impact on the client’s life
• Build strong relationships with the client, their friends and family
• Medico-legal experts
• Shine Lawyers offer a no win-no fee arrangement for medical negligence claims
Making a Serious Injury Claim
Shine Lawyers have an experienced department dedicated to cases that involve complex issues of liability and causation but more significantly injuries of considerable severity, including;
• head injury
• brain injury
• spinal cord injury
• serious/multiple orthopaedic injury; and
• and loss of limbs; or
• a combination of all of the above.
It is highly likely that clients who sustain injuries of this magnitude will encounter difficulties in returning to the workplace, will require significant care and support into the future and may require specific aids or equipment, transportation and housing.
Serious or multiple injury claims are complicated and require careful consideration of complex medical and legal issues. The complexity of time limits involved in a serious injury claim makes it critical that you obtain advice about your situation immediately.
Each State and Territory has its own laws that govern your right to compensation. However, it is important to note that the serious injury team take on cases where the tort occurs in a number of states.
Serious Injury Claim Information
The serious injury team was organised to take on cases from the core work types including, Workers’ Compensation, Public Liability and Motor Vehicle Accident where the injuries and conditions are considerably serious. This is due to the vast amount of evidence required to adequately deal with all relevant issues.
In order to be able to devote the time that is required for the proper investigation of serious injury claims, the team have smaller case loads. The team has also built up a bank of resources from previous experiences and input from experts leading us to identify probable symptoms and outcomes and making it more practical and cost effective for us to conduct these cases.
There are a number of reasons why a department which conducts cases differently was required and how it will benefit your case;
• Places more importance on an in-depth analysis and investigation period. In particularly, where liability issues appear to be challenging. Accidents resulting in significant injury invariably feature an element of contributory negligence, i.e., failure to wear a seatbelt/helmet, the involvement of drugs and/or alcohol, the obvious risk arguments;
• The recovery time to reach a stable position may be at least 2 years or more. Because of this, instructions will need to be more specific and orientated towards the client’s long term future. The client will invariably have more extensive rehabilitation requirements to properly maximise damages;
• There is a wider array of heads of damage of more significant value; therefore evidence from a highly skilled and proven group of tried and tested experts will be required.
• Relationships are not only built with the client but their family in order to identify issues which may not be apparent to the client, for example if they have no insight due to brain injury; and if a client does not have capacity, he/she will require a Litigation Guardian for legal proceedings and a Trustee for administration of damages;
• In order to further support those heads of damage and the value of them, more extensive evidence will be required from a larger number of witnesses, including family members and friends, teachers, colleagues, employers, etc and statements are often obtained on the witness’ home territory.
• To carefully monitor the effects of the injury and ongoing symptoms and minimise the impact on their lives.
• Financial impact, which often results in debt and/or relationship breakdown requires careful handling and requests for advance payments to ease the financial burden;
People who suffer serious multiple injuries, including physical and psychological damage, have a vast range of care requirements, often for the rest of their lives. In order to assess this level of care and other support and medical requirements accurately, Shine Lawyers has developed strong relationships with a team of medico-legal experts (doctors, psychologists, architects, and other therapy providers) who are able to assist in the serious injury claim process.
Individual clients may also be assigned a case manager, who ensures future care needs are fulfilled once the legal process is complete. The cost of a case manager can be quite extensive and it’s important that this substantial cost is included and recovered as part of the serious injury compensation process.
Because serious injury litigation can be expensive, Shine Lawyers will only charge fees for a serious injury claim if the outcome is successful. In other words, no win – no fee. Shine Lawyers also offer obligation free legal advice from one of our serious injury lawyers on a confidential basis.
If you believe you have suffered a serious injury as a result of an accident, please seek legal advice as soon as practical. The complexity of time limits in a serious injury makes it critical that you obtain advice about your situation immediately.
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