header-logo header-logo

01 February 2013 / Chris Gutteridge
Issue: 7546 / Categories: Features , Personal injury
printer mail-detail

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

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Anthony Collins—William Hallett & Lorna Scully

Anthony Collins—William Hallett & Lorna Scully

Anthony Collins hires two talented legal directors

Switalskis—five appointments

Switalskis—five appointments

Firm expands national abuse compensation team

Mathys & Squire—nine promotions

Mathys & Squire—nine promotions

IP firm announces new partners and senior promotions across UK offices

NEWS
A High Court ruling has sent a jolt through the legal profession after a newly qualified solicitor used an internal AI tool to produce court correspondence containing a fabricated legal citation
A significant data privacy ruling has clarified what counts as valid consent under UK data protection law
Executors may be overlooking billions of pounds in estate assets hidden in forgotten investments and misplaced share certificates
Britain’s booming non-surgical cosmetics market is operating in what some critics describe as a regulatory ‘Wild West’
Family contact disputes are becoming an increasingly prominent feature of Court of Protection litigation
back-to-top-scroll