There was a time when claimant personal injury solicitors were not invited to attend the annual conference of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) - nor, it should be said, were defendant lawyers seen at the equivalent Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) shindig. Indeed, Obiter recalls attending one FOIL annual conference some years ago where a large photograph of then APIL president Ian Walker was projected on to the wall to an ever-so-mature chorus of boos. However, things change and if there is not exactly detente between the two organisations, they do at least talk to each other, albeit through gritted teeth. And so there were a couple of claimant lawyers invited to last week’s FOIL annual conference to take part in a debate. But we are saddened to report that their use of, shall we say, earthy language did lower the tone.

First up was current APIL president Martin Bare, who recalled a previous APIL conference, at which the then FOIL president, invited to the event, was forced to intervene when he overheard two APIL members speculate that FOIL actually stood for ‘F- Off Injured Litigants’. But the reason the FOIL man protested, Mr Bare joked, was because he did not accept that any clients were injured in the first place.

Then we had Martin Cockx, who, along with fellow Amelans partner Andrew Twambley, was at the vanguard of the costs war with defendant insurers. He came to the podium after an amusing address by FOIL vice-president Anthony Hughes, a partner at DWF. Mr Cockx claimed that the last time the two had spoken was outside Macclesfield County Court some six years ago. Their brief but heated conversation, Mr Cockx recounted, went something along these lines:Mr Cockx: F- off and appeal.Mr Hughes: I f-ing will.

Sadly, we do not know what the outcome of that particular spat was. But at the end of the debate, the terribly even-handed members of FOIL voted in support of the proposition that claims have changed society for the better - much to the chagrin of new FOIL president Henry Bermingham, one of the relatively few to vote against. Obiter reckons that we can expect a period of fun and games between APIL and FOIL with Messrs Bare and Bermingham at the respective helms.