Personal injury firms tend to specialise in acting for either claimants or defendants.

Claimants are usually individuals, although support provided by trade unions is an important feature of personal injury work.

Defendants can vary from members of the public to multinationals. Defendant lawyers can receive instructions directly from defendants, from their insurers, or from a range of other intermediary organisations involved in claims handling.

What you can expect

Typically a personal injury lawyer handles a higher number of cases than a commercial litigator. Tight timetables and deadlines are features of every working day. A sound working knowledge of civil procedure, as well as the substantive law involved in a case, is required.

Investigating claims in detail at the outset is of crucial importance, for both claimant and defendant lawyers.

For claimants, public funding is only available for a few types of claim. Most claimants will look to their lawyer to take cases on a ’no win, no fee’ basis. Clearly the claimant lawyer will not want to take on weak cases, nor pass up strong ones.

As most litigated personal injury claims end in an award of both damages to the claimant (usually less than the amount initially claimed) and costs, defendants want to know the risk they face on a claim as soon as possible. Defendant personal injury lawyers are under pressure to identify whether a case is one to settle or to fight as quickly as they can.

The circumstances that can lead to injury are endless, and personal injury lawyers find themselves investigating the most extraordinary sequences of events. This, combined with the high level of human interest and commercial pressures, makes for a challenging and interesting job.

Skills for personal injury lawyers

You will need:

• energy
• organisation and efficiency
• good negotiating and analytical skills
• a cool head under pressure.