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The government is set to take forward Lord Young’s proposals to extend the road traffic claims process to all low-value personal injury and clinical negligence cases, while the Jackson reforms are imminent, the Ministry of Justice confirmed today.

Personal injury claims and other low-value legal matters should be “delawyered” to some degree, former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer has argued. The peer, who was the architect of the Legal Services Act, said alternative business structures would help in this process. Welcoming the “commoditisation” of personal injury work, he said it is “fundamentally a good thing that the market should only be charged what the service requires”.

What has struck me from the various conversations I’ve had of late is that though we are still more than a year away from alternative business structures (ABSs), there is already an awful lot going on out there. Those lawyers who think that I and others are exaggerating or scaremongering when we report on threats to the traditional practice of law should meet some of these people. It really is happening.

I have read with interest the letters in the Gazette about personal injury claims and referral fees over the last few weeks following the release of the Insurers’ report (aka the Jackson report).