33Legal Ltd: Info
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33 Legal Ltd | Claim Services in Preston & Manchester: Review
Lately we've been accused of writing reviews that are too long-winded. Nothing about the facts or background we provide not being useful. Just that we often wrap that information up in too many surrounding words. My daughter is now 12 and obsessed with something called 'Tik Tok'. It's basically people doing bland things in front of a camera for about 5-10 seconds. I don't understand the fascination, but it's well documented that attention spans have collapsed in recent years. I will therefore do my best to be concise for this 33 Legal review.
Sounds good, but obviously this is something all claims firms will state in one way or another. So what drew us to 33 Legal Ltd in order for us to be recommending them to people. Well for one thing, they focus on criminal injury matters.
To the general public, all compensation claims probably sound the same and most will assume they're handled the same with the same profit for the solicitors involved. That isn't so. Not by a long shot. Medical Negligence cases for example are notoriously hard to pursue due to the extensive medical work that has to be researched and the fact the NHS regularly fight such cases - pushing up the costs and timescales. Because of this most firms don't even handle negligence cases and those that do will typically not hand over 100% of the client's compensation at completion. On the other hand whiplash claims against insurers are rarely contested, quick, easy to research/prove, and therefore more profitable.
Claims for victims of violent crime against the government-created CICA (Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority) come under the former category of hard work. They're also very emotional and often deal with horrible acts against the most vulnerable. So the fact 33Legal don't just handle these but actively push to get such cases - says something about their mindset vs the majority of claims handlers out there.
They also mention Legal Aid - another thing most solicitors won't work with any more - but the majority of personal injury claims will come under a no win, no fee arrangement anyway. Even Medical Negligence and Criminal Injury cases will typically be no win, no fee. They just may not qualify for a 100% compensation guarantee. The maximum a solicitor should take though is 25% of your compensation to help cover costs as not all case types result in the solicitors fees being covered by the third party. Make sure to ask up front about both arrangements with any firm you contact.
Okay, so are they any good at these cases? Through both professional and personal instances we've discovered that experience really is key when it comes to any legal matter. That doesn't just mean length of time though, but actual specialisation in certain case types. If you've done a little of your own homework, you'll have seen that 33 Legal Ltd was incorporated in early 2017. However, the website states they have 20 years of experience in various personal injury matters. Both statements are true. The 2017 date only references when the company became "Limited".
We've often said that it's better to get a 20-year experienced lawyer in a 1-year old firm than to end up with a 1-year experienced lawyer at a 20-year old firm. So don't be taken in by claims of "Established in 1880" on many legal websites as if it means something incredible. 9 times out of 10 it's meaningless. (Especially with one Southern England firm that claimed a 150 year heritage because they moved into the building an old law firm originally owned. No really!)
The majority of the text on any law firm's website is going to sound similar to the next. Words like 'modern', 'friendly', 'maximum', 'jargon-free', and so on sound great. But if everyone is saying the same - what can you check to see what separates them? Not alot of people realise that
there is a much more official way to see complaints about a firm than just skimming through Google reviews. The Legal Ombudsman Database lists all the actual complaints filed against law firms and their outcomes.
Unfortunately when it comes to legal matters, people are not as motivated to leave reviews compared to their local Chinese Take-Away or the online Trampolines-R-Us type firms. The issues are very personal so it typically doesn't occur to people to leave comments in the same way unless actually asked to do so by the solicitor. So the fact 33 Legal (or any law firm for that matter) has only a handful or even zero reviews about them - doesn't indicate anything negative.
We always cringe a little when we see statements like this, as solicitors and social media don't always go well together. However, we were pleased to see that the staff of 33 Legal treat social media in a way you would expect a firm dealing with such serious matters to do. We've seen law firms sharing Strictly Come Dancing memes, swearing, or just posting endless adverts followed by the phrase "Like Us!" which just looks out of place. As if following their local solicitor is something anyone outside the industry gets excited about. 33 Legal's profiles on the other hand share on-topic matters, at a decent frequency, with rarely a self-promoting post in sight.
Again, that may not be something you'd consider important when judging a firm. But we've also been in the legal industry for over 20 years now and some firms can get way too involved in their own branding. It either means business isn't going well and they're trying desperately to drum some up. Or, basic narcissism. And you don't want a law firm with either issue.
We did see a few niggly things and cliche words around, but nothing worth pointing out except for the huge number of websites the firm seem to be running. The one we link to above is www.33legal.uk but if you use a search engine to find the firm you'll probably see www.my33legal.com appear at the top of the results. Beneath that we saw www.crashedtoday.co.uk and www.ukclaimline.co.uk both with titles indicating they were part of the same firm as well. Then there was an array of case specific titles such as www.cicaclaims.co.uk, www.nhsdirectclaim.co.uk, www.medicalnegclaim.com and a few more relating to the more recent popular claim type of holiday sickness such as www.sickwhilstaway.com - all within the first few pages of search results for the firm's official name.
To their credit, they do make it clear on all these sites that they are run by 33Legal with all the same company information listed. You'd probably be surprised at how many apparently different brands are all run by a single firm. Again, whilst this is not an uncommon practice for law firms to create several marketing brands for online use - it can be confusing. Considering the huge number of simple variants people might mis-remember such as www.33legal.co.uk, we recommend bookmarking the main site we've linked to above if you plan on coming back to them. Whilst scammers seem to have mainly hit property solicitors in recent years, there is so much phishing around these days it's best to be really sure what you're doing when it comes to large sums of money.
Never, ever discuss money or the payment of it via email and if you don't recognise the person calling you up from a firm - don't feel embarrassed by saying you'd like to hang up and call them back on the official phone number you've already been given.
This is certainly one statement that we'd like to see repeated more across claims company websites. Sadly the focus is often money, money, money and it's all too common for marketing companies to push that ideal when trying to tempt you into using a particular firm. Just a few years ago there was a horrible trend of firms promising iPads to clients if they submitted a claim through them. We've actually written articles on how more firms should be connected with good therapy centres and how treatment should be a bigger part of settlements rather than just money to cover what's already happened.
Well, I apologise for failing to keep my promise of a much shorter review article this time. I hope it helped at least. I still feel that the extra bits and pieces such as warnings about the latest scams going around and the comparisons between various firms - can really help people get an overall sense of the legal industry as a whole. That can only benefit in the long run, surely?
General Notes: Usually if Legal Aid is possible we've mentioned it above, but you can always ask. We haven't looked in depth at their recruitment program so are unaware of any job vacancies available. For a career with 33Legal Ltd it's best to visit the website (www.33legal.uk), check opening hours, and find the correct phone/email contact details. Simply emailing a CV to reception looks lazy. Each law firm's Law Society and/or SRA number should be on their site, usually at the bottom of each page.
This 33Legal Ltd article is rated
4.2 / 5 based on 11 reviews. †
(Voting has been paused for this page.)
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