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@Anonymous; Commented on: 29 November 2017 14:44 GMT

"....All these crocodile tears are nauseating. Every PI lawyer knows perfectly well that not long after CFA's were introduced the PI industry rapidly declined into a cesspit of fraud and corruption, and that people were getting ludicrously overpaid for unskilled work. I know because was one of them, getting £300+ an hour for pathetic little whiplash claims that a monkey could have dealt with. ..."

Not only just PI Solicitors and Barristers. We all knew it.

"....Of course I rode the bandwagon like everyone else, only jumping off when I was being asked to pay hundreds of pounds per claim. .."

Many did. This was the essential reason for the 'Non-Access' To 'Non-Justice' Act 2000, merely to set up a third tier of intermediaries. A Claims Industry. It could be seen in the USA what was the norm there and continues to be so ....

"...The mere fact that such referral fees could be paid at all was a blindingly obvious indication of just how much surplus cash was knocking about. .."

Not so much surplus cash within the fees, but manufactured extra cash / fees so to speak, those earned from a pissed up drinker falling off a Bar stool and people pouring hot coffee over themselves and the purported likes ..... All of which when there were the protections of the Rules Against Maintenance and Champerty coupled with Legal Aid at source and a very intensive scrutiny of claims through the Local (usually voluntary) Legal Aid Area Committee, were kept safely under wraps .....

".....And then came the credit hire companies, the medical report agencies (often owned by solicitors) and all the other parasites eager to get their snouts in the overflowing trough. .."

As we say, the 'industry' (of which Jonathon Djangoly had a very serious interest in).

".....So I'm afraid it's the combination of a stupid and supine government, an insurance industry that pretended to be shocked by the level of claims but secretly encouraged them and thousands of corrupt practitioners and their hangers on that has brought this disgraceful industry to its knees. .."

And it may yet be in time it may yet be in time ......

PAB

But most of all it was PI firms and their astonishing greed that finally killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

It's unfortunate that the baby's been thrown out with the bathwater, and there probably are some innocent victims, but it was boil that had to be lanced as it was destroying the reputation of the legal profession.