What’s different about personal injury claims?

The legal market is a strange one at the moment – at the top end of the market are the “magic circle” legal practices such as Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy and others. These are the true corporate leviathans who tend to service the FTSE100 companies and undertake the international corporate work for very big corporates. Below this elite group of law firms are further 300-400 firms who also generally undertake a mix of corporate and personal legal work successfully. This leaves literally thousands of other small law firms who are struggling or really struggling as general law practices, but at the smaller end of the market, one niche, one sector, has stood out as a very successful and lucrative area. This is personal injury and it is somewhat ironic that these successful legal practices are often given a bad rap both inside and outside of the legal profession.

The fact is that personal injury lawyers know their market and their clients and they provide a genuine win-win solution for thousands of individuals each year who have suffered an injury through no fault of their own for common claims such as whiplash compensation. Despite lingering suspicions from some quarters, and let’s face it, for whatever reason, clients are suspicious of lawyers, the vast majority of injury lawyers now offer a completely free service which, as things currently stand, also means that a claimant client keeps every penny of any damages received. No other area of law offers anything like this to a client, and no wonder the injury law practices are successful.

What also tends to separate the personal injury firms from many other small law firms, is that the injury lawyers understand marketing and that service levels and client perceptions are important. The vast majority of personal injury websites make it very easy and quick to find out if you are able to make a personal injury compensation claim.

There is a lot that other law firms can learn from personal injury lawyers, and like it or not, the model they offer undoubtedly has a place in the market and it isn’t going to go away.