legal
Roger Snook
MOTOR CLAIMS CONSULTANT
Does Jackson matter?
In the Final Report of his Review of Civil Litigation Costs released in December 2009 Lord Jackson directed his proposed package of interlocking reforms at those areas of civil litigation where costs are disproportionate and impede access to justice.
Consultant Roger Snook offers this spin on subsequent reactions to the report
I
t all comes down to money. It was inevitable that we would all read Lord Jackson’s report from our own professional perspectives. Either from the point of view of claimant lawyers, or as defendant lawyers and insurers. Whatever pious comments are made by interested parties seeking to justify the value they add to the dispute process, that’s what it all comes down to in the end - money. Take for instance the comment made by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) in January, in response to Lord Jackson’s recommendations, of which the following is an extract:
“The claim that ending
recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums will lead to cost savings is highly misleading. The costs will still be there. They will just shift to the claimant who will have to pay success fees and insurance premiums out of his damages...”
The tone of the APIL response suggests that they are really talking about multi-track cases, but clearly they have approached the Jackson Report from the perspective that, whatever happens, the claimants’ lawyers’ fees are going to continue to have to be paid at the present level, at least. Which is rather sad, given the high moral tone of the submissions they originally made
26 insurancepeople APRIL 2010
to Lord Jackson, emphasising the needs of the claimant. But apart from APIL’s view, consider the anonymous comments below, made in response to an article in “The Lawyer” by Andrew Tucker of Irwin Mitchell, in March this year, deploring Lord Jackson’s conclusions:
“LJ Jackson’s legendary
arrogance and supreme ego has so blinded him to the obvious destruction of access to justice he is no doubt stunned and amazed at the incredible backlash his report has created. The only people happy are those who are stupid enough to swallow the insurer-promulgated propaganda about all personal injury claimants being fraudulent. Let’s bin it and then move on” - Anonymous
Unsurprisingly anonymous, the following response was logged:
“What about access to justice for defendants? The backlash is only from claimant lawyers who see that the gravy train has reached the terminus. The public hate no-win, no-fee lawyers and rightly so. “Given that the author makes half a million pounds plus (see The Lawyer 100) per year out of representing claimants, I cannot believe these views are not tarnished by a huge self interest. I for one will ignore the contents of this piece for that reason alone. This is not a balanced view.” PI Lawyer.
Which does at least suggest
that not all lawyers are as prejudiced as the first respondent. However, let us not forget that insurers have a similar financial interest. There is some truth in the accusation that insurers have short-changed claimants in the past and, as APIL also say, tend to consider claims as a
commercial/financial equation without considering the personal aspects.
Of course, one might take a cynical view of that comment when looking at it in the light of the experience of claims being bought and sold to solicitors who have no personal contact with their clients. As I have commented in the past, the adversarial mudslinging is still alive and well. However, before we look at what the effect of Jackson may be, the first question is, “Will his recommendations be implemented?”
I suspect that they will. Not for any reason relating to ‘compensation culture’ or the (partial) submissions of the interested parties, but for the fact that there is seen to be a saving
“ Will his recommendations be implemented? ”
for the public purse, not least the NHS. Consider the reported comments below:
Justice Secretary Jack Straw
said: “Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals... are designed to reduce the costs of civil litigation overall. Those costs have risen too high, and that is a bar to proper
access to justice.” He went on to say that the government is “actively assessing” the proposals. Shadow Justice Minister Henry Bellingham hailed the report as a
“remarkable magnum opus” and
highlighted Jackson’s criticism of referral fees and the practices of claims management companies. I remain amused at the conceit that access to legal advice and the courts is considered as being “access to justice”, but it seems that even a change in government may make no difference. What of a hung parliament? Leaving aside the temptation to say that sounds like a good idea, I am unsure whether the lamp posts will be strong enough, even that result is unlikely to change the desire for cost reduction in these straightened times.
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