Howells LLP

Here are the details for this solicitor's practice area of Clinical Negligence. Please contact the solicitor using the details listed in the contact panel to the right hand side of this page. You can also choose to send an email enquiry or request a call back.

Our clinical negligence team can offer you the specialist advice you need to make sure that your voice is heard. Hospitals and Doctors may be formidable opponents, but we have brought many successful claims. If you instruct us, you will receive:-
 

• Specialist legal advice
• Advice on your claim from independent Doctors
• Full legal aid assessment
• Accessible service

Howells only acts for Claimant clinical negligence clients, in line with the firm’s overall commitment to the protection of the rights of the individual.

Howells commitment to and excellence in the field has been recognised through the franchise award by the Legal Services Commission for clinical negligence work.

We specialise in legal aid work across the firm generally and this includes the clinical negligence department. We have a number of ongoing conditional fee backed claims but have a special interest in the range of advice that can be given under the legal aid scheme. This includes legal help work and where appropriate assisting with complaints. We have been successful in settling high value claims with settlement figures of several million as well as very low value claims whilst keeping costs proportionate, as well as everything in between.

Howells is one of a few firms in Sheffield with a clinical negligence franchise. We have a Legal Services Commission Clinical Negligence Franchise and the department is supervised by a Law Society Panel member. We also hold franchises in all other areas of social welfare law and are therefore able to provide a holistic service to our clients. Our emphasis is to combine expertise in the area of law with personal service to individual clients. We do not use inexperienced staff to advise clients, and each case has the individual attention of an experienced clinical negligence solicitor with delegation of individual tasks as appropriate. We recognise the paramount importance of good experts in cases and we have a personal knowledge of the experts in many fields we instruct, enabling us to ensure they have legal as well as a medical understanding of the issues.

We choose from an identified pool of Counsel whom we know to have expertise in the area, ensuring that the particular strengths of the individual Barrister are suited to the needs of the case.

We offer excellence in the clinical negligence advice that we offer to our clients with emphasis on the personal service to individuals. The ethos of the firm generally is centred on this, but we believe that this is particularly important in clinical negligence where clients have been traumatised by their own medical injury or death of a close relative.

Every case is subject to a full risk assessment before it is taken on. An initial assessment is made by a specialist lawyer and the client is guaranteed personal contact with that lawyer throughout the case. The assistance of junior staff allows us to delegate tasks to an appropriate level but to maintain management and conduct of the case throughout by one solicitor.

The primary manner of funding clinical negligence claims is still public funding and we have many years of experience in dealing with the Legal Services Commission. In addition we are on the panel of a leading after the event insurer and operate a growing number of conditional fees cases.

We are able to deal with all areas of clinical negligence and have a number of settled and ongoing cancer cases, several different areas of misdiagnosis or failure of diagnosis, poor outcomes on plastic surgery and a number of cerebral palsy cases. We also act in wrongful birth claims and have considerable experience. We have achieved substantial settlements in this area of changing law. We are prepared to deal with cases of low value where it is financially viable but the range of our successful settlements is from a few thousand to millions.
 

back