Personal Injury: 55% of solicitors believe that the number of claims will remain unchanged

Personal injury solicitors maintain that government efforts to control the so-called compensation culture will not adversely affect their workload, new research has suggested.


The survey of 100 solicitors working in the sector by consultants Grant Thornton showed that 45% expect personal injury claims to increase by almost 20% over the next two years, while the remaining 55% contend that the the number of claims will remain static. This is despite the launch of the Compensation Bill by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, last week.


Solicitors predicted a healthy future for the sector owing to factors such as greater public awareness about how to pursue claims, provoked by more 'no win, no fee' advertising; the rise in celebrities involved in litigation; and a continuation in the number of occupational disease and road-traffic accident cases.


However, they warned that more than a third of claimants these days seemed to have inflated expectations about what their case was worth, and also reported a 22% rise in the number of spurious or exaggerated claims.


Grant Thornton partner Sally Longworth said: 'It is arguable whether the UK is contending with a real compensation culture, as 75% of the personal injury lawyers surveyed did not report an increase in the overall number of claims compared to last year. What is happening is that a proportion of these claims, fuelled by claims farmers promising "no win, no fee" solutions are breeding more bogus or exaggerated claims that aim for easy returns.'


The survey also found that 55% of respondents thought public funding should be re-introduced for personal injury cases.


'Legal aid is largely seen as an antidote against those claims that give compensation a bad name,' Ms Longworth added. 'It would rid the market of claim farmers and recreate a level playing field where everyone with a valid claim is entitled to legal representation.'


But Martin Cockx, partner at Manchester claimant firms Amelans, argued it was 'nonsense' that legal aid would stop bogus claims or curb any compensation culture. 'To suggest that the return to a system where a solicitor is guaranteed payment win, lose or draw would somehow be a panacea is ridiculous,' he insisted.


He added: 'Surveys such as this do nothing to establish the reality of the situation, which is that the level of claims is falling and that there are still many people who are badly injured year after year who do not claim when they should, and whose quality of life is much reduced as a result.'