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The general public will have no sympathy with countless lawyers and associated workers losing out because the ABI has played a blinder playing the long con that is years of "compensation culture" and "fat cat lawyers' propaganda in the mainstream press (and which has been fortified by incessant adverts and other media/advertising campaigns by the claims farmers). They will also, largely, be uninterested in rhetoric (even if it is largely true) about consequential losses (VAT, taxes, recoverable benefits etc.). They need to be told, over and over, the simple fact that the proposals will deny them access to justice and deny them just compensation when it is geuinely deserved. Each PI firm should start by writing to / emailing every whiplash claimant they've ever had on their books to tell them how 'lucky' they were to claim when they did for if they were to suffer a similar accident in future they would not be compensated (and would, in the majority of cases, be expected to fight alone to recover their LOE and other pecuniary losses consequent upon a RTA via the SCT) and to urge them to write to their MPs to tell their story of how the compensation they received went some way to make up for the pain and discomfort they suffered at the hands of a negligent other. Even provide them with a template letter and email address, imploring them to copy, paste and click 'send'. Those firms with lucrative collective retainers with the unions in particular should urge their whiplash clients, past and present, to also petition their unions to urge them to join the fight against these proposals.

The government too will have no sympathy with the lawyers and associated workers who will lose out. Nor will they have the foresight to appreciate the wider impact such reform would have on, for example, the NHS, for they are blind and deaf to anything other than the ABI mantra. But MPs might just listen to their constituents, and the unions, if there are enough of them voicing their concerns - and there must be a fair few whiplash claimants within each parliamentary seat who, collectively, might just be loud enough to be heard.

The PI sector (and that includes lawyers from both sides of the litigation fence) must not make the same mistake it made over LASPO: whinging privately and ranting via comments sections such as this or issuing press statements that will only really be read by the legal profession will acheive nothing on its own. Do not believe that TLS, APIL, MASS and other such organisations are your saviours: they are not and will be largely dismissed as simply looking after their own.

Whatever you do, do something.

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