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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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NEWS
Talk of a reserved ‘Welsh seat’ on the Supreme Court is misplaced. In NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC explains that the Constitutional Reform Act treats ‘England and Wales’ as one jurisdiction, with no statutory Welsh slot
The government’s plan to curb jury trials has sparked ‘jury furore’. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke, partner at Hill Dickinson, says the rationale is ‘grossly inadequate’
A year after the $1.5bn Bybit heist, crypto fraud is booming—but so is recovery. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Holloway, founder and CEO of M2 Recovery, warns that scams hit at least $14bn in 2025, fuelled by ‘pig butchering’ cons and AI deepfakes
After Woodcock confirmed no general duty to warn, debate turns to the criminal law. Writing in NLJ this week, Charles Davey of The Barrister Group urges revival of misprision or a modern equivalent
Family courts are tightening control of expert evidence. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Chris Pamplin says there is ‘no automatic right’ to call experts; attendance must be ‘necessary in the interests of justice’ under FPR Pt 25
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