dental solicitors UK - specialist solicitors in dental negligence claims and dental law

My overall goal is to negotiate an out of Court settlement of your claim. After all, nobody really wants to fight their case in a Courtroom of this can be avoided. Most good strong personal injury and clinical negligence claims (which include dental claims) will therefore be settled before Court proceedings have to be issued. There is always of course the exception to every rule!

On being contacted, I will speak to you over the telephone and assess the basics of your claim with you, limitation, breach of duty, causation and injury, to see If your dental case is strong enough to be accepted by me. If strong enough, further detail will be obtained from you, such as our personal details, details of the dentists in question, a detailed description of the clinical events and alike. If strong enough, your case will be run under a Law Society approved CFA (conditional fee agreement) often called a "no win no fee" agreement.

After the CFA has been signed, then one of the first jobs that I shall undertake is a full assessment of your dental claim. This is to assess the strength of your own case, and that of the dentist accused of negligence. This will involve me obtaining your clinical records and x-rays from the dentist accused of negligence, and also any subsequent treating dentists that you may have attended. This is so that I can get all of the facts surrounding your case, rather like building up a jigsaw puzzle, one the pieces of the puzzle have been obtained, then the picture of your treatment will slowly form. Once your dental case has been assessed, and I am confident that all relevant documents have been found, depending upon the type of your case, I shall obtain evidence of brief report from a dental expert, and shall write a “letter of claim” to the dentist accused of the negligence. This letter of claim is required to be written by me under the court rules, and outlines the damage that you have suffered, and the reasons why we feel that that your particular dentist has been negligent in his/her treatment of you.

It is at this stage that the dentist will usually instruct his/her defence organisation to represent him. It is a requirement that dentists carry compulsory insurance in order to practice, and these insurers, better known as defence organisations become involved at an early stage. The three main defence organisations are Dental Protection, The Dental Defence Union and The Medical Dental Defence Union of Scotland.

The dentist (or his/her defence organisation) then has 3 months in which to investigate your dental negligence claim and provide a "letter of response" in accordance with the court rules. This letter of response must either admit your claim, (or parts of it), or deny your claim (or parts of it) giving specific reasons for the denial. It is at this stage of the negotiations that if an out of court settlement cannot be reached, then I shall consider issuing court proceedings, and advise you of the best way to proceed in your dental claim.