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I've just spent an endless amount of time trying to work out a loss of earnings claim for a taxi driver who was badly injured and therefore couldn't work. Liability is admitted. It is on the portal. I can't submit my valuation offer until I know the figure for loss; I don't have a nice wage slip to get the information from as the client has recently become self-employed so has a mountain of paperwork such as day books, expenses, but no profit and loss account etc. I have to do this calculation, but will I get paid for it? No. I'll get £200 for stage 1 and £300 for stage 2. That's it. Proportionate? I don't think so. The only way to make costs proportionate to the claim is to bring them up to a level that reflects the work. It's barely possible to do a 'straightforward' RTA for the money we get paid, and impossible if there is anything such as a self-employed claimant.

Don't even mention the further work needed to go to stage 3 if we need to. And yes, you do get a further payment then but by that stage unless your charging rate is that of the office cat (which isn't fat) the work done far exceeds the monies coming in. We are left in this position due to the media and the government buying into the so called compensation culture.

As somebody else has said, what other profession can get an excellent result for a client and then not be allowed to be paid a reasonable amount of money for doing so?

Retraining as a plumber has a certain appeal today...