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This news knocked 53% off Slater & Gordon shares on the Australian stock market, now down nearly 72% on last week. https://goo.gl/i7k5eu. A worrying barometer on the prospects for personal injury firms here, many of which are already in a parlous state, and the banks must be looking closely. And even among those who appear to be doing all right, query how many there are with figures masked by trading off their pre-LASPO and Jackson reform work. We have seen quite a lot of mergers and acquisitions among law firms (in connection with the professional indemnity and compliance aspects).

No doubt some will be successful, as there are always some firms who will rise to the challenge, but they will need to be very focused on efficiency. We do see evidence of inefficiency in file handling among some volume PI firms, no doubt a product of inadequate supervision of inexperienced paralegals.

PI firms have largely stopped limitation periods being a cause of claims, but there are still significant areas of waste. Examples include general non-compliance with procedure (Mitchell being but one issue), omitting heads of claim (including credit hire), undervalue settlement, counterclaim struck out for failing to pay correct court fee, post overlooked etc. Car manufacturers moved on from checking cars for faults to making them right first time, and some PI firms need to focus on this too if they are to survive.