As a department of more than 120 people, our Serious Injury team are experts at working together to deliver the best client outcomes, and their Peer Review sessions are just one of the keyways they do that. Associate Solicitor Craig Gravil shares some insight into the benefits it brings to the way he works and how it directly impacts his cases.
When training to be a lawyer in the UK, one of the foundations of the learning experience has always been the passing down of knowledge from more experienced colleagues. Whether this sharing of knowledge comes as part of a training contract or through work experience when qualifying as a Solicitor.
We pride ourselves on the legal talent we have at all levels of our Serious Injury department, which is needed to accommodate the wide variety of complex, high value and catastrophic injury cases we handle on behalf of our most vulnerable clients. It is important to share that knowledge within the department.
To facilitate this, our regular ‘Peer Review’ sessions give case handlers the opportunity to discuss case issues with their peers to gather their guidance and collective authority to take the appropriate next steps in the case. The issues discussed are wide and varied but may include areas such as a review of liability prospects, consideration of offers received or decisions to be taken on the instruction of expert witnesses.
These sessions are incredibly powerful, providing case handlers not only with a potential solution to a particular issue but also increasing the chance of the right decision being made on the file without the need to use external chambers. With cases being discussed by collective minds, all possible solutions are considered and where necessary, a majority vote is taken on the options available, making for a more considered judgment and balanced solution.
Another advantage of Peer Review is enabling people attending to see how others think and approach case problems, allowing them to develop their skills, knowledge, and gain insight into other types of cases they might not normally deal with or have very little experience in.
What our colleagues have to say about Peer Reviews:
“I find the peer reviews really beneficial. Being new to the team it’s nice to get an insight into other people’s caseloads and a good way to broaden knowledge on a variety of cases, everyone has come across different things so knowledge can be shared, which helps me to look at different ways to approach a problem so cases can be progressed. Like the saying two heads are better than one.” – Gemma Racz, Trainee Serious Injury Handler
“I recently started at minster and think peer review is brilliant, you can take advantage of the hive mind and more experienced colleagues, sometimes there are questions you don’t think to ask until someone asks once you get to peer review.” – Hasina Mumford, Solicitor in serious injury
