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01 February 2013 / Chris Gutteridge
Issue: 7546 / Categories: Features , Personal injury
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The art of persuasion

Technology & expert advocacy can achieve the best persuasive effect from a schedule of loss, explains Chris Gutteridge

In personal injury litigation, the balance of probabilities is king and the art of persuasion can secure you the keys to the kingdom. As Baroness Hale put it in Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2 “more likely than not” is a matter of persuasion, not of proof.

There is a particular emphasis on the importance of persuasion in litigation involving an injury which has changed the course of a claimant’s future working life or, in the case of a catastrophic injury, brought that working life to a premature end. In these cases, the trial judge is asked to predict the future, sometimes with very little to go on. How is a court to decide whether an injured infant would have become a banker or a bin collector? Whether an injured graduate would have excelled or floundered? The findings of fact made by a judge faced with such a dilemma can make hundreds of thousands of

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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