Engagement and Empathy in Serious and Catastrophic Injury Claims

Carol Hopwood, Head of Serious and Catastrophic Injury at Carpenters Group, emphasises balancing legal expertise and empathy, early engagement, cultural awareness, and mental health support in handling injury claims.

Leading a team of lawyers often handling the most complex and sometimes emotionally  

gut-wrenching cases requires me to balance my legal expertise and empathy in leadership very carefully. 

Acting Swiftly to Set the Tone 

At Carpenters, as signatories to the Serious Injury (SI) Guide, we seek early engagement wherever possible with our opposing insurer. Our experience of the use of the Guide and Rehab Code is overwhelmingly positive.  

In cases involving life changing or fatal injuries it is very important to act swiftly to secure the financial reassurance that many families are seeking in those early days when their focus should rightly be on surviving their injuries.   Early contact and mapping meetings enable both parties to plan, fund and progress cases in a timely manner.  It’s not all plain sailing but setting the tone of a commitment in those early weeks to working together to support the client is significantly better than the locking of horns mentality, often without justification of yesteryear.  Having early access to quality and timely rehabilitation makes such a physical and psychological difference. 

In recent years there have thankfully been many improvements in our area of work. These include the support groups and charities that now exist to assist seriously injured clients and their families.   

Caring Deeply to Deliver Fully  

This area of work is more than a just a day job to me and to many of my team. Ten years ago I set up a branch of Headway in Sefton, Merseyside. The aim was to create a community of support, socialisation and friendship to combat the social isolation, physical and mental health issues that many clients face when living with a brain injury. These almost always impact clients’ ability to work, live independently or where personality changes have occurred, result in the devastating loss of friends or marital breakdown.  

Our work in this area is not really something you can totally switch off from. We care deeply about our clients and their families. In fact, six lawyers from the serious injury team at Carpenters Group are now very much hands on with different Headway branches across the UK. This is something they choose to dedicate their time and expertise to and it gives me a huge sense of pride to see how much it matters to them. It also makes me alert to the shadow side of having a team so invested in such complex and moving cases.  

Making SI Claims Inclusive  

We approach our work with a keen eye on the necessity to be knowledgeable about, and respectful of, the different religions, cultures and customers across our client base. So, to ensure we achieve this our teams attend training sessions so we can be confident we deliver advice in an informed and respectful manner. 

We are mindful that the litigation process can be daunting.  Along with the use of plain English and regular communication, we have invested in the production of an animated video that sits on our web page.  The video illustrates in plain English the process that our clients will face on their litigation journey. It aims to be informative but also reassuring, the last things anyone wants at a time of such crisis is to unpick confusing legal jargon! I’m pleased to say we’ve had really good feedback that the video helps to demystify the claims process. 

I mentioned earlier there is a shadow side of fostering a culture within the team that sees our lawyers care so much. The welfare of our people is very important to me and so I am mindful of the risks of empathy overload and the constant exposure to traumatic instructions, images and videos.   

To mitigate this risk, as well as internal mental health champions, we have an external expert talk to the team about how to regulate emotions and develop coping mechanisms to deal with catastrophic injury cases.   

There is rarely a week goes by that I am not encouraged by the commitment shown to SI cases at Carpenters Group, and it confirms to me the ongoing need to focus on how we balance the needs of the client with the wellbeing of legal professionals championing their case.