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Putting the injured person first - APIL accreditation

Since 1990 specialist Personal Injury Lawyers all over the country have been members of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), an independent, not-for-profit organisation. In order to protect clients interests, a requirement of this membership is that lawyers must follow the APIL Consumer Charter (which can be found at www.apil.com). However, it was felt that more protection could be provided to the injured person when searching for someone to represent their best interest with a personal injury claim. September 2005 saw the public launch of the APIL accreditation scheme. Accreditation means that the lawyer has achieved a certain standard of expertise and competence. One of APIL’s concerns was to ensure that members of the public should be aware of the difference between lawyers and claims management companies to ensure that they find the best representation. Generally people are unaware of the difference between these two. Lawyers are either solicitors, legal executives or barristers who are regulated by the Law Society, the Institute of Legal Executives and the Bar Council respectively. Claims management companies are not regulated by any of these bodies and usually act as middlemen, not actually handling claims themselves and referring cases onto lawyers whom the injured person may never have heard of.

The message is pure and simple - if you are unfortunately injured and need to pursue a personal injury claim use an APIL accredited lawyer to ensure that you are treated fairly. TS&P is an accredited firm and all the Personal Injury lawyers are APIL members. To spread this message APIL have, among other things, prepared a presentation for APIL members to give to Citizens Advice Bureaus (CAB’s) across the country. TS&P will be contacting CAB’s across Kent and in the Thames Gateway region to offer the opportunity to hear more about APIL and APIL accreditation to highlight the protection that can be offered to an injured person by referring them to accredited firms.

For further enquiries please contact Jonathan Clement (view full profile) on 01892 701264 or email jclement@ts-p.co.uk.

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