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Perfecting the art of compromise

Personal injury lawyer Belinda Hughes, Director of Hughes and Lewis Legal, talks about a typical day. Photo/video: Geoff McLeod

It’s 10 days until Queensland Law Society’s 2024 Personal Injuries Law Conference. This year’s theme explores the 3Ps of Personal Injuries Law: Preparation, Principles and Presentation, focusing on the principles of quality practice.

Attendees will hear from leading experts and specialist practitioners. Ahead of the event, Proctor spoke to PI lawyer of 20 years, Belinda Hughes, Director of Hughes and Lewis Legal, about what it’s like to be a personal injuries solicitor – the highs, lows and everything in between.

Can you describe your role in its place within the broader legal profession?

Personal injuries law I think is one of the most human centred areas of law. It’s about real people in their everyday lives and how an injury affects their lives.

I guess at the core of what a personal injury lawyer does is people, and it doesn’t matter if you act for the injured person or you act for an employer, council or even an insurance company, it’s about people. So, for personal injuries law in a technical sense, it’s more than just the law and how it applies, it’s how we apply the law to people’s everyday lives, how it affects people like you and I.

Nobody wants to go to work and be injured. Nobody wants to get into their car and suffer an injury or move about in the community and be injured. No employer wants to see one of their workers injured, and nobody wants to get in the car and cause a motor vehicle accident. What everyone wants to know in that circumstance, whether you’re an injured person or you’re a person that’s involved in an injury, is that there is insurance available and that the insurer going to act reasonably and fairly in compensating appropriate claims.

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My role as a personal injury lawyer can be incredibly humbling. I get to meet some wonderful people at some of the most challenging times of their life. But, while adversity can bring out the best in some people, the compensation and claim process can also bring out the worst in others. So, it’s a bit of a juggle. I think the role of a personal injury lawyer, whether you act for plaintiffs or defendants, is to apply the law to get to an appropriate outcome and that is usually the resolution of a case. But in matters that aren’t clear cut, your role is to make sure they are properly ventilated and if appropriate, contested.

What does a typical day look like for you in your role?

It involves a good mix of advice, work, advocacy, and getting out and about seeing clients and colleagues. I act for both defendants and plaintiffs, but mostly I act for defendants, so I get to leave the office a lot of the time. Either way, I get to go and see my clients in their home or in their workplace. I’ve been to mine sites, abattoirs, factories, farms, shops and even on boats. That’s probably my favourite part of the role, getting to meet people in their own environment and seeing things that I wouldn’t otherwise have an opportunity to see, that’s absolutely fantastic.

We also attend a lot of mediations and compulsory conferences where we advocate for our clients. Personal injuries law is heavily centred on pre-proceedings and so most matters are resolved at a compulsory conference. Some can run into litigation and occasionally, we go to a trial. Behind the scenes there’s also drafting advices, reviewing documents, liaising with your client and the solicitor on the other side.

I like this area of law because I think that’s a good mix of being in the office, getting out of the office, doing technical legal work and interacting with others. I really think it’s a great area of law for a junior lawyer, because it’s an area you can be thrown into straight away, where you can do all aspects of the role and once you’re in there you slowly develop and hone those skills.

What do you find most rewarding about being a personal injuries lawyer?

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For me it would be getting a good result, which is not a win in a technical sense. It’s redefining the win. I guess it’s putting together a whole lot of different factors that need to be balanced for different clients get into a position where all sides can walk away and live with the result. It’s value adding to a process for a person who’s going through one of the most difficult and challenging stages of their life, you’re picking up and putting together all the puzzle pieces and you’re getting a result for them.

I think potentially you could call it the perfecting the art of compromise, which can be a win, when you consider factors like delay, legal costs, uncertainty in legal results and just the emotional toll a claim can have on a person.

What are the biggest challenges that you face in your role?

The first would be managing client expectations. For a lot of people, having an injury will be one of the most significant things that happens in their life, and it will affect all areas of their life. Or it could just be that they know what Bob down the road settled his claim for and they’ve got some expectations around what their claim might be then worth. So that’s always a bit of a challenge. The other thing I can think of, is the business behind being a personal injuries lawyer. It’s balancing things like budgets, charge out rates, KPIs and targets. Those things are common to all areas of law, but I think it’s a particular juggle for a personal injuries lawyer.

What’s something about being a personal injuries lawyer that people might not know or consider?

There is a bit of a stereotype around a personal injury law that’s a little bit unfair, where we have traditionally either been seen as being ambulance chasers or pen pushers, depending on the client you act for. I don’t think either stereotype reflects what we actually do. Most people I know go into personal injuries law because they genuinely want to do something that’s for the betterment of other people and to make an improvement in somebody’s life. It’s not about the money at all.

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There’s a lot of work we do that can’t be charged for. So, there’s speculative work that you don’t win. There are low value claims that can’t be charged, pro bono work that’s done, initial consultations with clients and initial advice and then a lot of volunteer and community and industry work that’s done.

The other thing that people might not necessarily know, and that I think defines this area of law is while most matters do resolve in the pre-proceedings stage the fact that the parties are either represented by legal firms that can speculate these claims or insurance companies means that personal injuries law is one of the few areas of civil litigation where parties can actually afford to run trials. I think we see a lot of development in the law and a lot of evolution in our law because of that.

If you could give your past self some advice on the first day of the job what would it be?

Value your reputation. You only get one and it will define you. Always be respectful to your colleagues. They have good and bad days like you do. Like every industry, there’s maybe a few bad eggs, but by and large, personal injury lawyers are a collegiate group. We tend to know each other, and you come across the same people all the time. We are all working towards a common goal, which is a satisfactory resolution for our respective clients. But I think the most important thing that I wish I knew when I was more junior would be to treat it like a marathon and not like a sprint. There’s good and bad days and they both pass. At the end of the day, it is a career, and it has to be something that’s sustainable, rewarding and that you enjoy.

Registration for the QLS Personal Injuries Law Conference is open.

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