Results for Thompsons Solicitors Scotland:
Thompsons Solicitors Scotland, Personal Injury Claims in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Peebles & Galashiels:
The majority of law firm's websites you've visited today will have had a large amount of sales-pitching and buzzwords across their site. Some of the most common phrases are 'traditional', 'modern', 'friendly', 'professional', 'award-winning' and so on. They sound good but are often subjective and sometimes completely meaningless. For example, if the law firm has won "best logo design of the year" yet simply states "award-winning" on their front page - would you count that as helpful towards your search for a good firm? So, does the Thompsons website do the same:
"Thompsons Solicitors is an award-winning personal injury law firm. We only ever take on a case if we think it has a reasonable prospect of success and we win over 90% of our court cases, each week recovering over £1 million for our clients."
In this case, the claim of being award-winning is actually backed up and details put within easy the reach of the reader. Certainly they list quite a few including 'Firm of the Year' at the Scott + Co Legal Awards and 'Litigation Firm of the Year' at the same awards the following year. They've also had 'Employment Firm of The Year', 'Law Firm of the Year' and 'Solicitor of the Year' (awarded to Brenda Mitchell) at the Law Awards of Scotland.
Then there is the claim 'each week recovering over £1 million for our clients'. If this amount doesn't impress you, then you've been watching too many American lawyer dramas. Far from the multi-million dollar US lawsuits for spilling coffee on yourself, the UK is still very reserved (we would prefer to call it 'being sensible') when it comes to compensation payouts. The average whiplash claim in the UK is currently £2500. So this boast from Thompsons is more about the amount of clients and experience they have rather than them promising you £million settlements for your pavement trip.
In the US the compensation amount is seen as a punishment for the negligent party to put them off doing it again. In the UK it's more about reparations for the injury such as covering medical costs and lost wages. For example, a boy with a short-term scar on his leg will received far less compensation than a girl with a long-term scar on her face. The amount of negligence that caused either injury isn't actually as important when calculating damages.
"We are committed to providing the highest standards of client care. This means that in addition to securing the maximum possible compensation in each case, we also seek to provide additional support and guidance. We help our clients gaining access to top treatments, rehabilitation therapies, medical equipment and information about benefits and other forms of assistance."
This is something we've written about and discussed with law firms for many years. The idea money makes everything better seems to be how many Personal Injury firms talk about compensation. Many clients don't even get basic counselling after a traumatic incident. The solicitor will often judge 'mental anguish' of their client without any training to do so. The fact Thompsons take rehabilitation so seriously indicates a possible better approach to client care over other firms.
"Whenever appropriate and possible we will seek interim payments to ensure that our clients' most pressing financial or medical needs are met."
This is actually a much harder thing to do during a case than simply pushing for a final settlement figure. It requires expertise, experience and the best contacts with third party professionals needed to back up the claims very early on. This ability is certainly more helpful to people with serious life-changing injuries that may be out of work throughout the entire running of the case.
Thompsons' roots are somewhat unique. Their law firm was actually established in England in 1921 by William Henry Thompson, a champion of the trade union movement who continually pushed for civil liberties and compensation for workers. His firm was simply called 'W H Thompson, Solicitor' and was passed on to his two sons Robin and Brian Thompson. They expanded on the firm's personal injury and workers' compensation foundation and things grew from there. Thompsons Scotland was only set up relatively recently in 1979 in Glenfinlas Street, Edinburgh. On it's own though, the Scottish Thompsons is one of the largest specialist personal injury practices in the country with over 200 staff, including 11 partners and 10 solicitor advocates. They have offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Borders (Peebles), Galashiels and Dundee.
Whilst Thompsons Scotland specialises in the most common personal injury compensation claims (road traffic accidents, accidents at work and industrial diseases) their employment law department support Trade Unions to make workplaces safe and fair. They don't just help injured people, but also those treated unfairly by their employer in matters such as unfair dismissal, discrimination, equalities (including equal pay) and transfer of undertakings (TUPE).
It's probably because of this history and range of work that has resulted in them having a considerably sized News and Blog sections, although most seem more targeted towards industry professionals. Titles such as "Is it illegal to refuse those living with HIV a tattoo or other cosmetic treatments?", "World Suicide Prevention Day 2019", "The missing medical records, who has the right?" and so on. But there are a few that might interest clients such as "How to make a complaint to the NHS and a summary of the medical negligence process".
If you've spent the day searching for the right law firm for you, you may have noticed many posting testimonials on their site with sometimes incredibly glowing references apparently from clients. In this, Thomsons Solicitors in Scotland is no exception. However a poll we ran a few years ago indicated that just like us - the general public don't put much stock in testimonials printed on the firm's own website. They will always go looking for independent third party review forums. So what are people saying on the public boards?
• "Mr White was very efficient, along with your staff at Edinburgh. I was lettered regularly on any updates. I had no problems contacting him or his secretary."
• "Great communication, kept me informed every step of the way and fast turnaround."
• "keeping me informed about the process and explaining me about everything"
• "Clear and Concise advice from friendly and professional staff. Second time I've had to go to Thompson's and would recommend them to anyone"
• "Great service very informative kept me up to date with my claim process"
• "Great communication, kept me informed every step of the way and fast turnaround."
• "keeping me informed about the process and explaining me about everything"
• "Clear and Concise advice from friendly and professional staff. Second time I've had to go to Thompson's and would recommend them to anyone"
• "Great service very informative kept me up to date with my claim process"
These are snippets from user reviews across the regular forums such as Google Reviews, Facebook, Trustpilot, Yelp, Yell, etc. All the good reviews are pretty much like the above - i.e. good communication and fast turnaround. The bad reviews however were the reverse - i.e. bad communication and slow. So what is the best way to evaluate such reviews? First we would re-iterate our warning about star ratings. Never based a decision on the star rating alone. Read the reviews, because more often than you might think the negative review can sound a little petty. We genuninely saw someone give a criminal law firm 1 star because they refused to take on someone's divorce case. Sometimes, not even about the correct firm.
On top of reading the reviews, bear in mind that legal cases are not like ordering a pizza. People may have no problem posting whether they liked the pepperoni feast for dinner. However, they are often less likely to jump online to write about their divorce, contested will, or life changing injury. This means people are more likely to write a review about a law firm only if they were unhappy with the firm and want to vent. That goes triple for reviews about property processing law firms.
"We remove the worry from making a claim with our No Win No Fee Solicitors package which guarantees that you will receive maximum compensation with no hidden costs, no upfront outlay, just expert personal injury legal advice and representation."
As for our usual online navigation safety advice, the web address we link to above is www.thompsons-scotland.co.uk, which is the one that typically shows up if you search for "Thompsons Solicitors in Scotland". But if you search for simply for Thompson Solicitors, you may be shown www.thompsons.law.co.uk which is the England & Wales division. Direct type-in variants such as www.thompsonssolicitors.co.uk or www.thompsonssolicitors.com will also send you to that version of the site. With the wide number of possible guesses such as www.thompsonslaw.co.uk, www.thompsonsscotland.co.uk or www.thompsons-scotland.com we suggest searching for the full name or bookmarking the website when you're on it. A note for Irish visitors, www.thompsons-solicitors.co.uk is not related to this firm. If you want the Northern Ireland branch of this Thompsons, then go to www.thompsonssolicitors-ni.com
All this is incredibly important to remember these days with the rise in Phishing scams. There has been a significant rise in people being scammed out of their house deposit too. Property law firm clients are sending the deposit to fraudsters after recieving an email saying the bank details had changed. While we don't know of many scams targeting personal injury clients, you never know what they're going to come up with next. Always double check you're on the correct website and call the official phone number your law firm has given you if anything seems suspicious.
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General Notes: Legal Aid availability changes constantly, so ask up front. If you are looking for a career with Thompsons Solicitors Scotland it's best to visit the website (www.thompsons-scotland.co.uk) and locate the correct phone/email contact details. Any quoted here will be for potential clients. Alternating or adding words such as Thompsons Solicitors Glasgow may bring up different background/reviews on the firm. Each firm's Law Society and/or SRA number should be on their site too.