Abstract
Personal injury victims involved in compensation processes have a worse recovery than those not involved in compensation processes.
One predictor for worse recovery is lawyer engagement. As some people argue that this negative relation between lawyer engagement
and recovery may be explained by lawyers’ attitude and communications to clients, it seems important to investigate lawyer–client
interaction. Although procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence had previously discussed aspects relevant for lawyer–client
interaction, the client’s perspective has been rather ignored and only few empirical studies have been conducted. In this
qualitative study, 21 traffic accident victims were interviewed about their experiences with their lawyer. Five desirable
characteristics for lawyers were identified: communication, empathy, decisiveness, independence, and expertise. Communication
and empathy corresponded with aspects already discussed in literature, whereas decisiveness, independence and expertise had
been addressed only marginally. Further qualitative and quantitative research is necessary to establish preferable lawyer
characteristics and to investigate what would improve the well-being of personal injury victims during the claims settlement
process.
One predictor for worse recovery is lawyer engagement. As some people argue that this negative relation between lawyer engagement
and recovery may be explained by lawyers’ attitude and communications to clients, it seems important to investigate lawyer–client
interaction. Although procedural justice and therapeutic jurisprudence had previously discussed aspects relevant for lawyer–client
interaction, the client’s perspective has been rather ignored and only few empirical studies have been conducted. In this
qualitative study, 21 traffic accident victims were interviewed about their experiences with their lawyer. Five desirable
characteristics for lawyers were identified: communication, empathy, decisiveness, independence, and expertise. Communication
and empathy corresponded with aspects already discussed in literature, whereas decisiveness, independence and expertise had
been addressed only marginally. Further qualitative and quantitative research is necessary to establish preferable lawyer
characteristics and to investigate what would improve the well-being of personal injury victims during the claims settlement
process.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Pages 1-6
- DOI 10.1007/s12207-012-9120-0
- Authors
- Nieke A. Elbers, Faculty of Law, Department of Civil Law, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Kiliaan A. P. C. van Wees, Faculty of Law, Department of Civil Law, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Arno J. Akkermans, Faculty of Law, Department of Civil Law, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Pim Cuijpers, Faculty of Psychology and Education, Department of Clinical Psychology, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- David J. Bruinvels, Faculty of Law, Department of Civil Law, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Journal Psychological Injury and Law
- Online ISSN 1938-9728
- Print ISSN 1938-971X