Brain injury claims - Helping survivors for over 40 years

They call it the hidden disability. Sustaining a brain injury is serious and without knowing what lies ahead extremely scary. Very few people will ever understand what it’s like to live with a brain injury and when everything looks physically fine it makes it all the more concerning.

Digby Brown understands this, our brain injury solicitors have seen the multitude and variety of issues that someone experiences when recovering from a traumatic event which has caused that head or brain injury.

Whether related to a brain injury whilst in the workplace, or where most injuries of this nature occur on our roads, ultimately it doesn’t matter where, the injury and the recovery thereafter is what we focus on.

Our job is essentially twofold once you have got in touch. Firstly, to establish what happened, who was involved and who is potentially to blame and secondly for both the immediately and long term, establish what help is required to aid recovery and improve quality of life.

Our experience in brain injury claims, over 40 years, as well as our network of experts across a huge range of services beyond the law is why you choose us to get the job done.

Too many questions for today…

More than just compensation

What am I meant to do now? How have things changed? What will happen in the future? Can I still go to work? Can I drive a car when I physically recover? Will things ever improve? Who can help me?

Digby Brown knows each brain injury survivor faces their own unique challenges. There are so many questions and not many answers...yet.

However, there is a route, a well-trodden route, that many others have taken and one in which those questions can and will be answered, one by one.

Like a maze of confusion, we know we can help find the paths and get to a point where life can be enjoyed again. It isn’t easy but we are here to help.

As we have already mentioned but we can’t stress how important this experience is, we’ve done this for more than 40 years.

Working alongside survivors, their loved ones, medical experts, charities and case management services to help people overcome their obstacles.

We are here to make sure you keep going, that you don’t give up and that you have the right support in place to give you the best possible chance at living your best life after this accident.

That’s why coming to Digby Brown is about more than just compensation – it’s helping you as you create a new way of life.

What is an acquired brain injury (ABI)?

An acquired brain injury is damages that happens to part of a person’s brain. Physical injuries heal, they leave scars but they heal. Scars on our brains are not good news and although recovery will happen it can be different for everyone.

A brain injury should not be confused with a head injury. A head injury is damage that happens to the skull and structure of the head, while an ABI only relates to an injury of the actual brain.

How much brain injury compensation is enough?

We know the circumstances of what happened will have a huge bearing on the legal aspects of the case. In essence who is to blame and who should pay compensation. However, this is essentially more straight forward part.

Establishing how much brain injury compensation is the right amount is far harder and more subjective depending if you are defending or pursuing the case.

This is where Digby Brown’s expertise lies. Knowing that £3 million is not enough and £4.5 million is fair, takes a lifetime of working in the field and understanding the long-term implications of a brain injury.

It is no surprise that solicitors in our serious injury department only deal with high value, complicated cases of this nature.

Brain injury compensation claims process

When you come to Digby Brown we know there’s going to be unique aspects to your accident, your brain injury and the impact it has on the lives of you or your family.

This is why, as mentioned above, we tailor every package to suit your needs around medical treatment, rehabilitation or case management services.

But when it comes to the actual legal process there are a few steps that are standard in every case:

Initial interviews – we firstly meet with you to discuss more in-depth your individual needs.  This interview can be at your home, one of our seven offices or even at a rehab centre if you’re still in recovery. During this meeting we will also explain how we fund your brain injury claim with our no win, no fee Compensate funding model.

Sorting additional help – after the interview we’ll be able to make arrangements to address any urgent or short term needs. We fully adhere to something called the Rehabilitation Code of Practice, in essence both defender of the case and pursuer of the case put the individual needs of the injured party central to ensure their needs are put first to speed up recovery. The quicker you recover the less costly the claim will be – this benefits all parties.

Intimating claims – after carrying out initial investigations we will then write to the other party involved in your accident (most commonly an insurance company) and inform them that we are acting on your behalf to recover your brain injury compensation.

Gathering evidence – we then work with leading medical and financial experts to fully value your claim, making sure it takes in all your current and future care needs as well as compensating you for your pain and suffering as well as lost earnings (including pension).

Negotiating with insurers – after gathering the evidence we then present our valuations and arguments to the other party and we negotiate a settlement. If the compensation being offered is fair then we will offer you guidance on acceptance. If we think the other side is offering less than you are entitled to then we would advise you to refuse and instead prepare for court.

Preparing for court – we draft legal documents with the intention of going to court to get you as much compensation as you deserve. It rarely actually goes to court though – it is often the case then simply raising a court action can encourage the other side to increase their compensation offer to what we believe is fair.

Our commitment to helping ABI survivors

Digby Brown’s Serious Injury Department has been involved in the brain injury community for many, many years in Scotland.

We have longstanding associations with Headway, Child Brain Injury Trust, Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, Scottish Head Injury Forum and were founding members of the Brain Injury Network Group from which Head Injury Information Day (HiiD) was born.

For 10 years we have hosted HiiD – an annual event that brings together brain injury survivors and healthcare professionals to share knowledge and access support. With more than 30 exhibitors and 300 people attending the last event in Glasgow and Edinburgh it has now proved so popular we now have plans to host similar events in Inverness, Dumfries and Aberdeen.

In 2015 we also started the annual Christmas Cards and New Year Calendar competitions. This competition is exclusively for acquired brain injury victims as a way to help them tap into their creativity. Our last competition saw more than 300 entries!

Where our brain injury solicitors have been able to help

Every case is unique and every circumstance different – just some of the recent cases where we have helped.

There are lots of ways someone can sustain a brain injury and there are lots of ways that a person’s life can be impacted by it.

Kelly Christie damaged her frontal lobe after a car crash in 2006. But after coming to Digby Brown’s Brain Injury Solicitors for help she went on to become a celebrity beautician and is now forging a career as a mental health support worker. Her story was shared across national media including STV.

Fraser Watt’s brain injury left him speaking a foreign language that he had not spoken since he was a child living abroad. He recalled his incredible back story while speaking at the new Edinburgh Headway centre – more can be read here in the Daily Record.

And Fraser Howie was left with a gambling addiction after his brain injury altered his behaviour and left him with compulsive and addictive tendencies. He spoke about overcoming these challenges as part of the Head Injury Information Day that Digby Brown hosts each year.

The key thing to remember is that no matter how you were injured, and no matter what the effects were, if you were hurt because someone else was negligent then you are entitled to compensation.

Our reputation for helping serious injury survivors

Our reputation in helping survivors of serious injury is recognised by leading charities and organisations across the UK. 
In December 2020 the Serious Injury department also won the award for Catastrophic Injury Team of the Year at the Personal Injury Awards and its work in helping brain injury survivors played a huge part of this. This was a UK wide award with some of the largest and most respected legal firms represented. We were truly honoured to be recognised in this way.

For years we have had a close relationship with Headway who recommend us as a go-to firm for legal help after a traumatic brain injury.

We also repeatedly top legal rankings for personal injury work. In Chambers & Partners the firm has been ranked Band 1 for the last 15 years. The head of the Serious Injury department, Chris Stewart, is also ranked as a leading individual. While in The Legal 500 we have been ranked Tier 1 for the last 14 years.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has around 50 accredited specialists in the Scotland for personal injury work – and around half of these work at Digby Brown.

Moira Kay, a Partner in the Serious Injury department, is also the only APIL-accredited specialist for both brain injury and spinal cord injury in the whole of Scotland.

And on top of all that… the expertise, experience, resources and reputation of the Serious Injury department means that it alone has recovered more than £223million in the last 10 years.

What next?

Please get in touch. If we can help we will. You can simply call our Legal Enquiry Team seven days a week who will immediately direct you to one of the Partners in the team or fill in an enquiry form and say when you’d like to speak to us. We will respond as soon as we can.