Overseas Injury Lawyer: How to decide who is the best specialist solicitor to contact to make your claim for compensation following an accident overseas
All overseas injury lawyers are not the same – this article outlines what a specialist personal injury lawyer is and how to make sure the lawyer you choose is accredited by the Law Society.
Which country do you choose your overseas injury lawyer from?
The country where your accident occurred is known as a “jurisdiction”- your personal injury claim will be subject to the law of the land in that jurisdiction.
There are some exceptions in which you can do what is known as “jurisdiction spotting” – this means that you can choose which country in which to make your claim.
For example – imagine you booked a “package holiday” abroad. A “package holiday” being a holiday including flights, transfers, hotel and organised activities etc. During that package holiday abroad you tripped injuring yourself due to a defect with the hotel flooring. As the package holiday company has a business address in your home country you would have the right to make a compensation claim in your home country or the country where your accident occurred.
Overseas Injury Lawyer
You must choose your personal injury lawyer from the country you decide to make your compensation claim in.
Another example – includes road traffic accidents in Europe. European regulations allow you to either commence the claim in your home country or in the country in which the RTA occurred.
Imagine you are a UK national – driving a car on holiday in Germany and you are hit by a German national driver: you can either commence a compensation claim in the UK or in Germany.
What is an overseas injury lawyer?
An overseas injury lawyer can be known as a holiday accident lawyer, an overseas personal injury lawyer, etc. It is a solicitor based in the UK who has expertise in dealing with certain types of claims that occur outside of the UK.
Take, for example, England and Wales – in these countries a lawyer can be either a barrister or a solicitor, but an overseas injury solicitor is the lawyer you would need to contact to make your compensation claim.
How do you know which lawyer is the best one to make your claim?
All commonwealth or former commonwealth countries will have a supervising organisation for its lawyers known as the “Law Society”- this name may vary from country to country but its function will be similar.
The “Law Society” will set standards for its lawyers to meet and will often have specialist accreditations to show that a lawyer has a proven specialist skill.
Imagine you have an accident in England and wish to find the best personal injury solicitor to make your claim. England has a law Society which has a specialist “personal injury accreditation scheme” – until recently this was known as a “personal injury panel solicitor” scheme.
To be a member of the personal injury accreditation scheme a lawyer must be able to prove a high level of expertise.
Other accreditation schemes exist for different types of personal injury claims in England and Wales such as the “medical negligence accreditation scheme”.
I recommend if you have a personal injury that you only use a personal injury specialist who is an accredited specialist by the law society of the country in which you are making your claim.
How do you know who is a best overseas injury lawyer in a non-commonwealth country?
Many countries will have a supervising organisation similar to the Law Society where you can check the expertise of lawyers.
For example, in the United States you can check the expertise of a lawyer from a “bar association”.
Free online legal help contacting a specialist personal injury lawyer overseas
Click accident abroad solicitor to access my website’s free online legal help options. In many instances – I can help directly or you have a specialist lawyer contact you from abroad to discuss making your claim.
Summary of overseas injury lawyer page
You now know which country to make your compensation claim in, what a specialist personal injury lawyer actually is and how to know a lawyer is an officially recognised specialist.
To discover the benefits of choosing the best holiday injury lawyer and to check which accident lawyers are accredited by the law society as specialists in the UK click personal injury lawyer.
