What's the true value of your legal case? You may be missing out on millions!
- Article
- 24 Nov 2022
Almost every day we take calls from people who are unhappy with the outcome of their case and want to know if there is anything that can be done about it. The answer usually depends on whether the case has been settled or not. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to realise that, with one or two exceptions, once their case is settled it is finalised for good.
So if you are unsure about the advice you have received and would like a second opinion it is very important that you not sign anything until you have spoken to us.
But if you have signed on the dotted line give us a call anyway because depending on the circumstances we still may be able to help.
I say that because we had a case recently where a man came to see us. He had suffered a back injury in a motor vehicle accident and had not been able to work since and was concerned that the settlement of $210,000 negotiated by his solicitor wasn’t enough particularly as all his medical expenses and legal costs had been deducted from that figure.
Stephen P. Firth
The problem was that he had already signed on the dotted line and had received his money. This meant we couldn’t re-open his original case and could not take any new proceedings against the insurance company. So if we were going to try and help him we had to think outside the square. There was no doubt his case was worth a lot more than $210,000 but what could be done about it now?
There was only one option. We took action against his previous solicitors in professional negligence for failing to advise him properly about the true value of his case.
To begin with, our client was uncertain. He had already been through the process once and wasn’t sure he could face it again. In the end, though he agreed with us that he had been badly ripped off and decided to instruct us to take action against his previous solicitors for professional negligence.
Despite originally denying liability, at mediation, we were able to successfully settle the case against the solicitor for an additional $1.1 million over and above the original $210,000 he received.
Needless to say, our client was very happy.
Having said all that the moral of this story is that it is far better to get things right the first time and the best way to ensure this happens is to make certain your solicitor knows what he/she is doing. Unfortunately, there are a lot that don’t.