Litigators have become obsessed with process at the expense of justice, a leading claimant solicitor told delegates at the Law Society annual conference in Birmingham in a rallying call to reduce the involvement of lawyers in straightforward cases.

Fraser Whitehead, head of the trade union legal services group at national firm Russell Jones & Walker, told a session on the future of litigation that the consequence of the Civil Procedure Rules, 'professional complacency' and an 'overt focus on top-line performance and legally perfect systems' has been to create a system that is unjustifiable.


Whitehead: strip down process
'Our processes have become over-lawyered and too expensive,' he said. 'Bluntly, we can no longer expect the dispute resolution system to shore up private practice structures.


'Personal injury is a prime but by no means the only example. Many of the cases which are dealt with are straightforward. Nearly all settle eventually. Provided we can build in protection for those that turn out not to be as they may first have appeared, it is wrong for us to apply an all-hands-on-deck policy.'


He added: 'We have to strip down our job in the process to what it is really about - defining rights, enforcing rights and securing rights. Put another way, giving advice, making the claim, ensuring the resultant deal is fair.'


Mr Whitehead, immediate past chairman of the Law Society's civil litigation committee, said reducing lawyers' involvement would change rather than damage the profession. If a solicitor's work and costs were halved, it would simply allow him to work on another case.


He added that lawyers should also question other aspects of the system, such as taking out after-the-event insurance 'when so many cases settle', and the need for medical reports from consultants.


A more co-operative approach from insurers would also be required, with the aim of producing damages within three months in smaller personal injury cases.


Mr Whitehead warned that if the profession fails to take the initiative, the small-claims limit may rise to £5,000 - as recommended by the Better Regulation Task Force in its report on claims - 'and the cry will be that of the newly uncompensated. And the lawyers will be blamed'.


In the past year, both the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, and the Department for Work and Pensions have suggested limiting lawyers' involvement in small claims.