I believe Lord Justice Jackson’s emphasis on before-the-event (BTE), and the removal of after-the-event and adverse success fees, is linked to the onset of the Legal Services Act (LSA) and the introduction of alternative business structures.

BTE insurers’ current business model only works because high referral fees are paid; the premium itself not being based on risk, but on what the consumer will stand.

By removing referral fees, the recommendations on the one hand take out all the claims management companies, and on the other make the current referral arrangements between large insurers and large solicitors illegal. Thus, the BTE market should in theory have to charge a premium that covers the risk. That is likely to be a premium that most consumers would opt out of paying.

However, after the LSA comes into force, the insurers will still be able to offer discounted BTE premiums as they can refer the work to their own in-house law firm without a referral fee. The in-house law firm now generating fee income in excess of the current income generated by the referral arrangements.

At a stroke, therefore, the government will get the slick corporate, compartmentalised approach to claims handling that it thinks will benefit consumers. The insurers get to control most claims from the onset of insurance to completion of the claim. Not an independent solicitor in sight.

Far from being smug, high-street solicitors should beware. When the large PI firms lose their arrangements with claims management companies, insurers and other referral sources, they will not simply roll over and die. They will be advertising, big style, on a high street near you.

Dominic Moss, Personal Injury Practice, Northwich, Cheshire

Lord Justice Jackson proposes to establish a fixed cost system for the vast majority of personal injury claims. Given this fundamental change, and other proposed radical changes to the civil justice system, I expected the report to contain a Race Impact Statement. I may have missed something, but I could not find one.

I should declare an interest. Many of my PI clients are eastern Europeans, injured in accidents in the UK. Because of language and cultural issues, dealing with them can be very time-consuming. This invariably drives up the cost. Clients such as these would suffer discrimination, I fear, if a fixed cost system were to be introduced. Can Lord Justice Jackson reassure us that these aspects have been considered?

Boris Kremer, Kremers, Gosport, Hampshire