A chain collision (Dutch: kettingbotsing) dog bite or an accident at work. An accident resulting in personal injury can happen to anyone, often through no fault of your own. In most countries there are personal injury lawyers or lawyers who assist personal injury victims in recovering personal injury claims after, for example, a chain collision.
In some countries, including the Netherlands in particular, this is different. In the Netherlands, personal injury has become a business model, especially for smarter entrepreneurs. There is a lot of money to be made in the Netherlands with personal injury claims. This is at the expense of the quality of legal assistance to victims of a whiplash colission (Dutch: whiplash symptomen) or dog bite.
Personal Injury Lawyers vs Personal Injury Agencies
In the Netherlands, several representatives can be distinguished when it comes to personal injury claims. First, there are personal injury lawyers. This group is involved in personal injury law because they are lawyers and have studied for this. They deliberately chose to deal with personal injury. The revenue model was not a reason.
There are also personal injury agencies. No personal injury lawyers work here and often no personal injury lawyers. The owners are smart entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs look for industries in which money can be made. A personal injury agency deals with personal injury claims because they can earn money, not because they want to help people as is the case with lawyers.
Both a personal injury lawyer and a personal injury agency are therefore concerned with claiming personal injury, for example damage because someone has had whiplash symptoms as a result of a collision
What is the difference between personal injury lawyer and personal injury attorneys
A personal injury attorney and a personal injury agency both provide legal assistance in personal injury cases. There are many differences between the parties.
Personal injury lawyers have studied law for at least 4 years before they were allowed to practice the profession of personal injury lawyer. After that, a lawyer can specialize in personal injury claims. This is not the case with a personal injury agency. Personal injury specialist is not a protected profession in the Netherlands. Any smart entrepreneur can therefore start a personal injury agency. It is logical that this is at the expense of the quality of legal aid. A personal injury victim often receives too low a personal injury compensation for whiplash symptoms than he or she should receive. For example, a lower amount of compensation.
Are the personal injury lawyers disappearing in the Netherlands?
Entrepreneurs know exactly how to approach and recruit personal injury victims. Entrepreneurs in the field of personal injury have large budgets for an expensive website and a beautiful and successful Google campaign. This is used to advertise on the internet for free personal injury claims in the Netherlands.
The goal of personal injury agencies is to make money, after all, they are entrepreneurs. Helping personal injury victims is secondary and less important.
Claiming personal injury claims in the Netherlands is therefore particularly lucrative and entrepreneurs know this. Most personal injury lawyers are not entrepreneurs and as a result are losing more and more ground in the Netherlands in the field of personal injury. There is a good chance that this profession, with the exception of a few large firms, will become smaller and smaller within a few years and eventually vanish
Measures against entrepreneurs in personal injury
The Dutch government is not doing enough against entrepreneurs, despite the fact that the consequence of this form of legal aid is that people with injuries are not properly helped. Insurers also benefit from this, because they have to pay less compensation to the injury victim. The Bar Association in the Netherlands does not pay attention to the problem and the politicians are not doing anything either. Unfortunately, it looks like the situation will not change and personal injury lawyer has become a dying profession.