Karl Tonks makes the case for independent legal advice in personal injury cases
Proposals to arbitrarily slash fees in the portal and the fast track will irrevocably damage access to justice for many genuine victims of injury. The fees which have been proposed do not reflect the work involved and only serve to cut independent legal advice from the system.
This is a worrying prospect for members of the public, as without proper legal advice, their access to justice will be severely restricted, if not denied altogether. The government has not made its case for why the fees should be cut and is only proposing to do so because insurers have said they should be cut.
The consultation is proceeding on a false premise that the incoming ban on referral fees will result in a saving from the fixed fee. But referral fees were never included in the original fee negotiations and many firms do not even pay them.
Shared concerns
Our concerns about the proposed fees are not just shared by other claimant lawyers. Only recently, Professor Paul Fenn, the independent academic
