Tag Results

Changes to the personal injury landscape mean that claims management companies and others may step out of regulation altogether to run cases which commercial pressures may lead them to under-settle, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has warned.

The Legal Ombudsman should press to extend its jurisdiction to complaints about non-lawyer will-writers and the not-for-profit sector, while the government needs to review its inadequate powers over complaints against CMCs, a study has recommended.

Banning referral fees will have “no effect on legal costs” and instead make something that is “currently reasonably transparent into something totally opaque”, the architect of the claims management regime has warned MPs.

The raging referral fee debate – set to hit Parliament today – is focused mainly on claims arising from low-impact car accidents. So it seems fitting that the two impact assessments released by the government yesterday to justify the ban are similarly low powered. We can tell the Ministry of Justice is on shaky ground when it admits that instead of hard evidence, the assessment “provides some anecdotal evidence received from various sources”.

I spoke at a conference organised by the Claims Standards Council earlier this year in Manchester on applying to become an alternative business structure. Inevitably the main topic of the conference was the Jackson reforms and the (then) possible threat to referral fees. The organisers thought that the impact of the reforms might lead many claims management companies to consider becoming an ABS by acquisition or merger with existing law firms or by developing an in-house legal function.