If you have been injured as a result of medical treatment, you might be considering making a claim for compensation. When it comes to choosing your solicitor, should you stay with the local firm that your family has always used, or should you seek our a specialist medical negligence solicitor? This is an important question and one that could have a huge impact on the success or failure of your claim for compensation. This article is designed to explain what the differences are, and what questions you should ask to find out which solicitor will be the best one to help you with your claim.
Location.
One of the main advantages of choosing the solicitor in your High Street, or the one that your family has always used, is the sheer convenience of their location. You can drop into their offices and ask them questions and this will not take up a lot of your time. However, the reality with medical negligence claims nowadays is that the majority of the information required can be sent by email or by post, and most conversations take place by telephone.
Whereas location used to be a much more important factor, ease of communication now means that this is really not such a problem anymore. It is more important that you choose the best solicitor for the job as opposed to the one closest to your home or workplace.
Expertise.
Many High Street solicitors used to be able to undertake many different types of legal services and some still do. However, the term 'jack of all trades and master of none' is most relevant when talking about professional services. For example, would you want your heart surgery carried out by a general surgeon, or one who specialises only in heart surgery and spends all day and every day carrying out heart surgery?
The same is true of medical negligence. If the solicitor that you choose to help you spends every day only dealing exclusively with medical negligence claims their expertise has to be better than someone that one day is dealing with clients moving house, another day with employment matters and justone day a week doing some medical negligence claims.
The specialist solicitor will have more expertise simply by the total number of hours that they have spent working on files. They will have come across all of the common problems and challenges that are experienced on medical negligence claims, and will have found answers to these problems. They will have built up a team of experts such as barristers and doctors to provide reports and assistance. They will also be fully aware of each item that you can claim compensation for, they will not miss obvious items which a less experienced medical negligence solicitor simply might not be aware of.
