Personal Injury Lawyers: directory of firms

Each scheme sets its own notification and lodgement periods, and each state's limitation legislation sets a separate outer limit for commencing court proceedings. They are not the same date, and missing the early one can cost you benefits even where the later one has not expired.

Some obligations bite immediately: reporting a motor accident to police, notifying an employer of a workplace injury, seeing a doctor and having the injury recorded. These are not formalities. In every scheme the contemporaneous medical record is the evidence that carries the claim later.

Because the periods vary between motor accident, workers compensation and general civil claims, and between states, the only safe approach is to get advice from a practitioner in your state as soon as you are able, rather than assuming a general rule you read somewhere applies to your situation.

A statutory claim is lodged with the relevant insurer or scheme agent, who accepts or disputes liability and funds treatment and income support while the claim runs. Most schemes then require assessment of the injury, often by an independent medical examiner engaged by the insurer, and it is that assessment that unlocks or blocks the next stage.

If the insurer's decision is disputed, each scheme has its own internal review and then an external dispute resolution body. In Queensland, claims covered by the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 must go through a pre-court procedure, including a compulsory conference, before proceedings can be started.

Only after those steps does a common law damages claim proceed to court, if the injury meets the threshold the scheme sets for damages.

Statutory benefits are paid without proving fault and cover treatment, rehabilitation and lost income while you recover. They are designed to start quickly and to stop once you recover or reach a scheme threshold.

A damages claim is different. It generally requires fault on someone else's part, it is assessed once, and it covers heads of loss the statutory scheme does not, such as future economic loss and, where the scheme allows it, non-economic loss. Most schemes restrict damages to injuries above a defined level of impairment.

Because a damages claim is usually a one-off, the timing matters. Settling before the medical picture is stable is the most common way people undervalue a serious injury.

Personal injury costs are regulated more tightly than other legal work in several states, with statutory limits on what can be charged in scheme claims and restrictions on advertising personal injury services. Ask specifically what the limits are in your state and how they apply to your claim.

A conditional costs agreement, commonly described as no win no fee, defers your lawyer's fees, but disbursements such as medical reports, expert opinions and filing fees still have to be funded, and whether they are payable if the claim fails should be in writing. Any uplift for success should be stated clearly.

Under the Legal Profession Uniform Law your lawyer must also give you an estimate of the costs you will have to pay, including any legal costs payable to another party, before a litigation settlement is finalised. Read that document before you agree to settle, not after.

Gaps in treatment records. If there is no doctor's note between the accident and the claim, an insurer will argue the injury was not as described. Keep seeing your treating practitioner and make sure symptoms are recorded each time.

Understating the injury early, particularly psychological injury, which is often not mentioned for months and then looks like an afterthought. Inconsistent accounts of the accident itself between the police report, the claim form and the medical history are the other classic problem.

Finally, settling a statutory claim without understanding what it closes off. Some settlements finalise entitlements permanently, including future treatment, and there is usually no way back.

Personal injury is a searchable area of practice on Victoria's Register of Lawyers, and other states publish equivalent practitioner searches. Accredited specialisation in personal injury law is offered by several state law societies and is a formal credential, not a marketing line.

Ask which scheme the practice works in day to day. A firm that runs Victorian transport accident claims is not automatically the right one for a New South Wales compulsory third party claim or a Queensland claim governed by the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act, because the procedure, the thresholds and the dispute bodies are different.