News & Blogs
If you have suffered from a Life Changing Injury that is the result of someone else’s negligence, Brethertons can help you with much more than just the financial claim that is normally associated with solicitors. Brethertons are here to not only help...
The claims that we deal with tend to have a lump sum equivalent value of hundreds of thousands (and more commonly millions) of pounds. That is what a life changing injury may well equate to when the lost earnings, care, equipment, therapies, and...
On 12 th July, Brethertons visited the Stoke Mandeville Spinal Centre in support of the Fish and Chips night organised by the Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research charity. It was a pleasure to support such an informative evening which, after enjoying the yummy...
Every 4 hours someone in the UK suffers a Spinal Cord Injury, and as a result of their injury, many people with paralysis experience a lifetime of debilitating health complications. Founded in 2006, Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research (SMSR) is an...
Last Friday was Spinal Cord Injuries Awareness Day 2023. Brethertons Solicitors were proud to raise awareness of all spinal cord injuries related matters on that and every other day. It is important and it matters. We help people regain independence and...
In the last ten years or so my specialist team and I have secured around one hundred million pounds (£100,000,000) of compensation for clients who have suffered spinal cord or other life changing injuries. That sum is a lump sum equivalent value. A...
'It is all about perception’ is a truism that stands the test of time. And people’s perceptions can take a long time to change. The perception that there is a compensation culture perpetuated by no win no fee lawyers still seems to persist at...
How much does it cost to issue my life changing injuries case in Court? In life changing injury cases, clients are often surprised to learn how much it costs simply to commence (that is ‘issue’) legal proceedings so that a Judge can eventually...
Follow Up and Lifelong Care of Spinal Cord Injury - NSIC Study Day It was a privilege to have been invited to – and to sponsor - the latest Study Day at the National Spinal Injuries Centre earlier this week. ‘Follow Up and Lifelong Care of...
Where a person suffers a spinal cord injury it will have a lifelong impact. As specialist solicitors our role is to try to secure as much compensation as might be possible to recover commensurate with what the law will recognise as compensable loss. Take...
One of the frustrations of being a specialist spinal cord injuries solicitor is that there are some people you can help quickly, where pressure ulcers shouldn’t be an issue. That will typically be the situation in cases where liability is clear and...
The spinal cord injuries community is relatively small, yet the issues that patients - and those helping patients - with spinal cord injuries must navigate can often seem so extensive as to be overwhelming and beyond comprehension. As specialist solicitors...
It could well be that there is more than the one connection between Liz Truss and spinal cord injuries litigation, but as the country adjusts to a new prime minister – its 56 th and the Queen’s 15 th - the ‘connection between Liz Truss...
Compensation is the best a civilised society can do to deliver a measure of justice to persons injured through the negligence of another. But no amount of money can ever turn back the clock. Does compensation make a difference after spinal cord injury and if...
Around the same time as the conversation with the neurosurgeon described below, someone suggested I should write a blog about the ‘principle(s) of compensation’. Not so long ago, I was in what was genuinely a light-hearted conversation with a...
We have covered elsewhere how spinal cord injuries are relatively rare (even though seven people will suffer the injury each day – one every 3.5 hours or so). If there are 50,000 people living with spinal cord injuries in the UK, that number represents...
Congratulations to Martin Hibbert of the Spinal Injuries Association on completing his Martin’s Mountain challenge and getting to the top of Kilimanjaro. What Martin has accomplished since suffering spinal cord injury in the Manchester arena terrorism...
As solicitors who help clients after spinal cord injury, we frequently find ourselves confronting the stark reality that as litigators all we can ever achieve is the recovery of an amount of money that the law deems to be commensurate with the...
By the time a person comes to speak to a solicitor about making a compensation claim following spinal cord injury they will already have been assisted by a range of clinicians, therapists and others in the medical setting, but there are also likely to be a...
There are obviously excellent medical references that can explain the different types of spinal cord injury far more helpfully than we can as mere solicitors. But the purpose of this blog is to explore some of the more frequently encountered aspects of...
In our experience of helping people who have suffered spinal cord or other life changing injuries, the process of coming to terms with the fact you or someone you care for might need help through to actually being helped has several identifiable and nuanced...
The Brethertons spinal cord injuries team are asked all sorts of questions by clients and prospective clients, but typically at the outset of a new case those questions coalesce around four main ones. Those are: Have a I got a case? Is it worth pursuing? ...
Not so many years ago a client approached us concerned that their then solicitor was advising them to settle their claim for a lump sum they thought was not enough. The long story cut short is we settled the claim for 44 times the amount the previous...
Statistically, the average human has fewer than four limbs. What does that mean, what does it tell us about humans, and what does it tell us about statistics? What follows is intended as no more than a tour through statistics that catch the eye in the work...
If you have suffered a spinal cord injury – indeed any life changing injury – the chances are that if you have a claim for compensation, it will involve a substantial sum of money. We have represented clients where their spinal cord injury was...
We were pleased to visit SMSR – Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research - at the National Spinal Injuries Centre this week where we met with Charlotte Minoprio and Derek Cutler as their new fundraising year begins. Brethertons has a long tradition of...
Solicitors from the Brethertons spinal cord injuries team attended the European Neuro Convention 21 which was run within Naidex 2021 at the NEC (see our companion blog covering the wider Naidex event ). With two of our team about to abseil the...
Brethertons were pleased to attend the Naidex Exhibition at the Birmingham NEC on 15 th and 16 th September – and the European Neuro Convention 21 which was run within the Naidex event. Naidex is Europe’s most established event for ‘the...
A day to increase understanding of spinal cord injury; raise the profile of spinal cord injury and highlight challenges faced by people who have suffered spinal cord injury. Who does spinal cord injury affect? A spinal cord injury is estimated to...
There are many different forms of support out there to assist seriously injured people and their families, from blogs and podcasts to in-person meet ups and charities. If you have not been fortunate enough to have received Peer Support in hospital or...
What might otherwise have taken a good many years has been achieved in months as solicitors adapt to new ways of working because of the Covid19 pandemic. Our serious injuries specialists are no exception. We might not be meeting in person quite so often but...
The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has launched a new campaign Rebuilding Shattered Lives video - see this powerful animated film which aims at highlighting the difference experienced solicitors can make in the aftermath of serious injury....
Today, Brethertons join in marking National Spinal Cord Injuries Awareness Day #SCIAware. Brethertons are proud corporate partners of the Spinal Injuries Association and its work to help those who have to live with spinal cord injury. Jon Rees who leads...
I help people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. It seems this morning, the government might have as well. It has been announced today that the discount rate will now be reduced from 2.5% to -0.75%. If you have ongoing losses (perhaps future loss of...
On 16 November our Spinal Injury team attended the 18th MASCIP (Multidisciplinary Association for Spinal Cord Injury Professionals) Conference "Contending with Complexity, managing increasing needs" at Loughborough University. It was an...
There is no doubt most parents want to encourage children to play sports. It’s good for a number of reasons but how safe are sports like Rugby? In an open letter dated 1st March 2016, signed by more than 70 doctors and health experts, a warning...
The Spinal Injuries Association’s advises patients to interview more than one solicitor in order to make an informed decision about who they instruct. It should be a given that the solicitor contacted via the Spinal Injuries Association Manual will...
The ‘Guide to the Conduct of Cases Involving Serious Injury’ sets out the best practice agreed between those experienced in representing claimants, and defendants’ insurers. It is specifically for cases where the potential value of the...
The 33rd Guttmann Meeting was held at the Lion Quays Hotel, Oswestry recently, sponsored by Brethertons. This year the Midland Centre For Spinal Cord Injuries were hosting – celebrating 50 years as a specialist centre assisting people with spinal cord...
There has been a lot going on in our busy spinal injuries team in recent months. Aside our office move (Banbury to Rugby) and a changeover in our administration team (fond farewells to Lisa and Emma, warm welcomes to Julie and Anne-Marie) and all that...
On Monday 8th March I attended a reception hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) at the House of Commons. The Group has been set up to deal with issues being faced by those who have suffered a SCI. The...
We have appointed Katherine Lennon as Head of our Brain Injury team. We have an excellent track record of securing multi-million pound settlements for clients who have sustained catastrophic injuries. Katherine Lennon too has many-million...
I have recently overseen the production of a video featuring one of our clients, Ify Nwokoro. Although Ify’s case settled shortly before I joined the firm in 2014 I have come to know him well. On our first meeting, at this year’s Spinal Injuries...
The NHS is often criticised in the press for bed blocking and at MASCIP’s recent conference Continuing Healthcare: Does it? we heard about the real cost of the lack of continuing healthcare for patients with a spinal cord injury when their...
At long last the Serious Injury Guide is officially launched. Some months ago I ran a seminar - about the coming of the Guide - at the Annual Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Conference organised by Headway and the Spinal Injuries...
In the second of two blogs Jon Rees about the joint Physiotherapy Project between Brethertons and the National Spinal Injuries Centre Jon describes a recent visit to Stoke Mandeville. It was simple: John and Dominic wanted to catch a bus in to...
The Brethertons commitment to helping people who have suffered spinal cord injuries is well known. In the first of two blogs Jon Rees details a joint Physiotherapy Project between Brethertons and the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville...
Recently I had the honour of accompanying some of the therapists and nursing team from Sheffield’s Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre on a day trip with four of their patients. The mission was to give the patients some respite from the hospital...
This evening, the Spinal Injuries Association is hosting the Rebuilding Lives Awards to recognise and celebrate the achievements of people throughout the spinal cord injury community. This includes not only people who have suffered an injury but case...
I am due to speak about the Guide to the Conduct of Serious Injury Cases this week at the Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Conference - jointly organised by Headway - the brain injury association and the Spinal Injuries Association. My brief is...
The Spinal Injuries Association is running its own social media campaign #mymilestone to highlight spinal awareness all this week. Check in on the SIA website and on Twitter for a glimpse of some of the incredible stories of the milestones that...
My oldest son recently became the proud owner of an iPad. The arrangement was Mum and Dad would buy it; oldest son would pay us back using birthday money and pocket money he will earn. I asked him this morning how he would feel if he discovered the price...
At Brethertons we are obviously very proud of our connections with the Spinal Injuries Association. I was moved to write this short blog having read this month’s Forward magazine which really does make excellent reading. Forward is the...
In a spinal cord injury claim, where liability is denied and we cannot secure an interim payment quickly, it is frustrating if we cannot do more to help our clients on a practical level. True enough many of our clients are helped by the team in the hospital...
A spinal cord injury compensation case we settled recently for more than £11million, highlights a point of considerable significance to claimants who settle their claims on a periodic payments basis. Jon Rees, Partner and Head of the Spinal Injury Team...
Every week, it seems, there are reports of NHS budget cuts and deficits that ultimately lead to reductions in staff and resources. That in turn increases the pressure on existing staff ultimately resulting in low morale and sickness in the NHS. And that was...
Jon Rees is Partner and heads the Spinal Injuries team at Brethertons Solicitors. Brethertons is a SIA Gold Corporate Partner and proud sponsor of SIA peer support officers Paul Rhodes (West Midlands) and John Leonard (East of England). The level of...
Jon Rees, Spinal Injuries Partner, discusses the work that Brethertons has carried out with the Spinal Injuries Association. It was nice to have been featured in the Spinal Injuries Association’s Forward Magazine this month. We are very proud of...
Spinal cord injury research topped the news today. Darek Fidyka was paralysed from the waist down after a knife attack in which his spinal cord was severed. He is the first person to undergo treatment using olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs), cells from...
Ever feel like you are being watched? It should come as no surprise that surveillance of claimants making personal injury claims is very prevalent. Insurance fraud is clearly a problem and cannot be condoned. An industry has emerged to detect insurance...
On 27th June 2014 we attended the 31st Guttman Conference hosted by the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville. How apt that the conference was held where “Poppa” Guttmann practiced and when Stoke Mandeville Hospital was celebrating...
The Brazil 2014 World Cup has kicked off and the names of Juliano Pinto and Miguel Nicolelis featured in news articles that tweeted their way around the world. Juliano performed the symbolic kick off. Miguel (and others) helped. Juliano is unable to walk...
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