Hospitals are liable for the negligence of their employees. Medical negligence occurs when the health professional has not acted in accordance with reasonable practices, as decided by other professionals in the same field.

It is the responsibility of the claimant to prove that the negligent act caused damage. A personal injury claim must be brought within 3 years of the injury being recognised.

The most common form of hospital negligence is that of failure to diagnose or a misdiagnosis. One example of this is where a patient attended an A&E Department with leg pain. After a catalogue of errors, including the wrong part of the leg being scanned, the young patient contracted gangrene and had the leg amputated. After pursuing the case through the courts, the family received £500,000 compensation.

Many mistakes can take place during surgery. One woman underwent surgery to increase her chances of becoming pregnant following a miscarriage. During the surgery, her fallopian tubes were removed without her consent. After 6 years of fighting through the courts, she received an undisclosed amount of compensation.

Many cases of medical negligence have been brought in respect of complications at birth. A mother who had a dangerous fibroid in her womb suffered just such complications. Although her medical notes contained details of her condition, they were not consulted and her child was starved of oxygen for 45 mins. This resulted in the baby suffering from cerebral palsy and impaired vision.

Falls at hospital can give rise to a personal injury claim, as hospitals have a duty to take preventative measures, particularly where elderly patients are concerned. Following an operation to repair a fractured hip, one elderly lady fell from her bed on 2 consecutive nights, resulting in a re-fracture. The patient’s health then deteriorated and she subsequently died a short while later. Although the falls were not the main cause of death, they were held to be a contributing factor.

As well as physical problems, a patient may also experience psychological trauma. A woman who underwent neurosurgery to remove a benign tumour started to experience problems after her discharge. She had been directed to take steroids twice a day for 4 days, then once a day thereafter. A few weeks later, she was diagnosed with depression and prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping tablets. At her follow up appointment for the tumour operation, it was disclosed that the steroids should have been discontinued after 2 weeks. Subsequently, an out of court settlement or £10,000 was agreed.

When choosing a career, it’s important to think ahead. What kind of job are you looking for? In what kind of work environment do you feel you would flourish? If you’re looking for a fast-paced, challenging job with great personal rewards and excellent mobility, then perhaps you’d be interested in becoming a paralegal.

The paralegal is the backbone of today’s law firms. Without their support, attorneys – particularly those in larger, well-established firms – would find it impossible to handle their workloads, and either the quantity or quality of cases handled would have to suffer. Paralegals are, in a very real way, responsible for maintaining the smooth operations of the criminal justice system as we know it.

The responsibilities of a paralegal are myriad; they range from helping attorneys prepare for trials to actively assisting in briefings and hearings. They are also responsible for extensive research regarding histories and precedents set by related cases, the drafting of motions, affidavit preparation, and the continuing organization of all relevant information.

It’s an incredibly diverse career, and it offers a daily array of challenges that assure that no two work days will ever be quite the same. Working so directly to achieve justice, to absolve the innocent and to protect the public from dangerous criminals is also a reward like no other; there are not many other jobs that can say they change the world on a daily basis!

It’s also a field of employment that’s seeing remarkable growth as well as a great deal of employment opportunities, which is a very real benefit in today’s economy. As the face, scope and nature of crime all change, attorneys and paralegals have their work cut out for them, and it’s a field that’s far more likely to grow in the future than to shrink.

So how do you become a paralegal?

The first thing you will need to do is take a look at schools. There are many options available, and they aren’t just limited to which college to attend; you also have various options within colleges, such as attending college online, or in person with either a 2-year associate’s degree or a 4-year bachelor’s degree.

A very common path for career paralegals is the 2-year associate’s degree, as it focuses directly on the basic knowledge and material you will need to get started in the workforce. For those interested in using a paralegal job as an eventual springboard toward larger, greater responsibilities in a law firm, however, a 4-year bachelor’s degree is likely to be of much greater value.

Essentially, the choice is yours, but it’s important to consider where you would like to be five or ten years down the line. For many, a paralegal is a career for life. For others, it’s a starting point from which they can move forward and serve the criminal justice system in larger capacities. Neither approach is the “wrong” one; it just depends on where you see yourself, and how you would like to get there.

Very few jobs are as secure and rewarding as a paralegal, so if any of the above sounds interesting to you, consider attending college online and becoming a paralegal.

This has been a guest post by Brandon Serna on behalf of Westwood College.

It’s widely known that when your identity is stolen and the crooks run up charges on your credit card you can dispute those and get the money back. The banks and credit card companies always have a reserve set up to deal with these extra expenses. So you might think that identity theft is a victimless crime. However this can not be further from the truth. If the banks/credit cards didn’t have to spend all that money dealing with this crime they could lower their rates and fees, which would benefit us all. Your credit rating could also suffer. While you can possibly get this fixed, it will take time and plenty of work to get your credit repaired. Next, you’ll have to prove that you’re not responsible for these charges to all those companies who are demanding payment from you. Also, the government suffers from billions of dollars worth of fraudulent benefit claims each year because of identity theft. This money is often times never recovered and is paid by your tax dollars.

Identity theft is rampant in our society. While thieves will still steal the occasional purse or car stereo, a far more lucrative crime is stealing your identity. With that, they can open up accounts in your name and make more than they ever could by just stealing your wallet. When someone steals your identity you most likely will not know until it is too late. So how do I know if I’ve become a victim of identity theft? Often times the first hint that your identity has been compromised is because you are refused credit. Other ways to know are if you receive bills for items that you never purchased. You could also have charges on your credit card or bank account that were not authorized. You could be receiving letters from debt collectors for items you don’t recognize. Another final way to know if your identity has been stolen is if you apply for government benefits and they tell you that you’ve already done so.

Legal Assistants and paralegals are found in all types of organizations, but most are employed by law firms (about 70%), corporate legal departments and various government offices make up most of the remaining 30%. In these organizations, they can work in many different areas of the law, including litigation, personal injury, corporate law, criminal law, employee benefits, intellectual property, labor law, bankruptcy, immigration, family law, and real estate.

As the law has become more complex, legal assistants and paralegals have responded, like many professions, by becoming more specialized. And within specialties, functions are often broken down even further so that legal assistants and paralegals may deal with a specific area. For example, legal assistants and paralegals specializing in labor law may concentrate exclusively on employee benefits.

The duties of legal assistants and paralegals also differ widely with the type of organization in which they are employed. Those who work for corporations often assist attorneys with employee contracts, shareholder agreements, stock-option plans and employee benefit plans. They may also help prepare and file annual financial reports, maintain corporate minutes’ record resolutions and prepare forms to secure loans for the corporation.

Legal Assistants and paralegals often monitor and review government regulations to ensure that the corporation is aware of any new requirements and to ensure they are operating within the law. In addition, an ever increasing number of experienced paralegals are taking on additional supervisory responsibilities like monitoring team projects and serving as a communications link between the team and the corporation. It doesn’t hurt that a paralegal salary is of an adequate amount.

- Unemployment insurance. Companies must provide unemployment insurance. Employers pay for all of it, the employee does not pay for it, yet they can claim these benefits if they lose their job.

- Workers compensation. Companies must provide workman’s comp. This includes disability income, medical benefits and time off. The employer pays for all of it, the employee does not pay for it.

- Pregnancy disability leave. For companies with a minimum of 5 employees, reasonable accommodations must be provided, which is typically between 4-8 weeks.

-Vacation. This is not required by law. However if your employer offers this benefit, and you have accrued vacation time, they are not allowed to remove your vacation time later, nor can they deny it to you even after you’ve been fired.

-Sick pay. This is also not required by law. However you can have time off (without pay) but have your job protected under the Federal Medical Leave Act. This applies for up to 12 work weeks within a 12 month period.

- Holiday pay, retirement, healthcare. These are all not required by law.