Patrick Allen counts the costs of the Jackson & legal aid reforms
It is almost two years since the Jackson and legal aid changes to civil justice rules and funding so what is happening on the ground? I detect four major changes so far, all undesirable.
Effect on claimant solicitors firms
It is evident that many firms have not found the new regime profitable enough to continue and it is harder to find the work. Smaller firms have been cut off from access to work by the ban on referral fees. Many have closed their departments, closed down altogether, gone into administration or been taken over by the big guns such as Slater and Gordon and Irwin Mitchell.
The costs regime in the portal and in the fast track is simply too low. The £700 deduction for alleged savings on marketing due to the abolition of referral fees was a fatal blow to profitability. You don’t have to be an expert to see that clients would not be rolling up to reception
