Until recently, the internet was not really established in the legal profession. Reference works consisted mainly of books that had to be updated every few years. This resulted in expensive subscriptions for personal injury lawyers, for example.
Courses and training were usually held on site and so were appointments with personal injury victims and personal injury insurance companies.
In recent years, much has changed in personal injury claims with regards to Internet and computer programs. In this contribution, the most important computer programs in the field of personal injury cases will be discussed.
Reference works
Various publishing companies have started offering online reference books about personal injury in recent years. A good example of this is the Claim Compensation Guide.
This compensation claim guide is used by personal injury lawyers to calculate the compensation amount (Dutch: smartengeld). This is a compensation for pain, grief, scars and psychological complaints such as anxiety complaints caused by the accident.
Suppose there is a dog bite (dutch: hondenbeet). The Compensation Claim Guide contains many statements in the field of personal injury after a dog bite that can serve as an example for determining the amount of grief money.
Other frequently used reference books that are frequently used in personal injury cases are Kluwer Navigator and Rechtsorde. They are computer programs in which all laws and jurisdiction can be found. But articles about for example traffic accidents, industrial accidents and personal injury after a dog bite are also included in these reference books. Where these used to be divided over various paper reference works, everything can now be consulted online!
System for working with files
Computer programs in which files were stored and consulted have been around for some time. Often, however, you could not create letters or make declarations from such a program. And these programs were often on a server. This had to be maintained periodically and many law firms therefore needed an ICT specialist. An expensive and malfunctioning way of working.
Nowadays, there is also a noticeable trend in the personal injury industry in which personal injury lawyers work more in the Cloud. This may sound logical to you as an IT specialist, but in the legal profession it took a long time before the first personal injury lawyers started working with this.
Paper files are still widely used, but more and more personal injury lawyers are now working in the Cloud and all files can be consulted online. This is useful, because information from the file can also be requested from insurers with a laptop during visits to clients' homes. For example, an official report after a car accident, a damage statement or a letter to the insurer can be easily accessed in this way.
Conclusion
Until recently, many law firms still worked with paper reference books and files were mainly kept on paper. In the meantime, more and more work is done online and files are stored and edited in the cloud.
Despite the fact that lawyers are increasingly working online, there is still a long way to go, especially with older lawyers who still often work with paper!
