Ashtons Legal calls for access to justice for injured people to remain

Posted 28/06/2011

There has been extensive media coverage this week about the issues of injury claims, referral fees and the cost of motor insurance policies. The Government has pledged to clamp down on the cost of spiralling injury claims. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is being debated in Parliament today and includes measures which would prevent medical injury claimants from obtaining legal aid. It also proposes that some of the costs of bringing an injury claim will be taken out of the damages awarded to the injured party.

The partners at Ashtons Legal who act for claimants in injury cases are highly concerned that the proposed changes will actually hit hardest those who need help the most.

Rosamund Rhodes-Kemp, who heads Ashtons Legal’s medical injury team, says: “The proposed approach is not the answer. The most satisfactory way to cut costs would be for increasingly collaborative working practices and early admissions of liability. We have fought for both. The cases with the highest legal costs are generally those which are fought over a period of years and require a large range of expert reports. The measures proposed in this Bill, which include wiping out Legal Aid for all medical accidents – even severely injured children – would make it harder for the most vulnerable and severely injured people to obtain the compensation they deserve to help maximise their quality of life in spite of their injuries.”

A survey undertaken by Access to Justice (AJAG) in January 2011 concluded that 77% of potential personal injury claimants would not make a claim if they were at risk of paying a defendant’s legal costs.

Ruth Booy, who leads the personal injury team at Ashtons Legal, comments: “If the proposed changes were only going to deter from claiming the small minority of claimants who have manufactured or fraudulent claims then one could see the logic. In reality, they are likely to deter people who have serious injuries and a genuine claim, and particularly those claims which are going to be harder to prove. At Ashtons Legal we don’t pay for personal injury referrals in the way many other lawyers do, but we do attract work based on our ability to succeed where other solicitors are reluctant to act or are failing to obtain a settlement that truly reflects the impact of the injury. Personal injury work is about restoring an individual as closely as possible to the position they were in before their acident.”