BBK TV? - Perhaps if Jackson gets his way
October 19, 2009
Posted by:Luke Nicholls
Whilst Lord Justice Jackson's preliminary report into the Review of Civil Litigation Costs appears to have good intentions by focusing on reducing the cost of civil litigation, in part, by introducing fixed fees for all fast track personal injury claims. What doesn’t escape me is the effect which this would have on the marketing by law firms and on access to justice for the injured person.
Since the introduction of CFA’s (conditional fee agreements) Claims Management Companies have sprung up all over the place, dominating TV adverts during daytime TV telling us “where there’s blame there’s a claim”. To be fair we have found them a mixed blessing, as with all areas of life there are unscrupulous operators. However the reputable Claims Management Companies we use, those who carefully select the law firms they refer injured people to and who strictly follow the Ministry of Justice’s code including the way in which they advertise, allow clients to have greater access to justice and allow us to concentrate on doing what we do best, being lawyers.
Fixed fees could result in the death of the Claims Management Company as we know it. This certainly appears to be Lord Justice Jackson’s intention, to cut out the ‘middlemen’. But if it boils down to only the law firms that behave like Claims Management Companies and invest heavily in advertising having access to the injured person, then those injured persons may end up with a firm that puts more resources into advertising than they do in putting their clients best interests first.