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20 February 2013 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 7549 / Categories: Opinion , Personal injury
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Keep your chin up

Dominic Regan remains optimistic about the future of injury litigation

The depressing news that a greatly respected major claimant road traffic firm was consulting upon mass redundancies no doubt confirmed the anxious fears of many. While it is as obvious as it is inevitable that claimant injury practices are going to be squeezed, it is by no means the end of the world for a variety of reasons.

Good news

I was elated to learn that the futile extension of the portal regime, so as to embrace employers’ liability (EL) claims, has been postponed. If wisdom prevails it will be quietly abandoned. It is wrong on so many fronts. There is no database of insurers as in road traffic accidents (RTAs) and the law can be mightily complex. I see no benefit in constructing an expensive and elaborate portal in an area where the majority of cases supposedly caught will exit. Since the simple RTA portal loses about 50% of cases I would anticipate that at least 80% of EL matters would

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Sidley—James Inness

Sidley—James Inness

Partner joins capital markets team in London office

Haynes Boone—William Cecil

Haynes Boone—William Cecil

Firm announces appointment of partner as UK general counsel

Devonshires—Nicholas Barrows

Devonshires—Nicholas Barrows

Firm appoints first chief marketing officer to drive growth strategy

NEWS

The Court of Appeal has slammed the brakes on claimants trying to swap defendants after limitation has expired. In Adcamp LLP v Office Properties and BDB Pitmans v Lee [2026] EWCA Civ 50, it overturned High Court rulings that had allowed substitutions under s 35(6)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, reports Sarah Crowther of DAC Beachcroft in this week's NLJ

A seemingly dry procedural update may prove potent. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ this week, Stephen Gold explains that new CPR 31.12A—part of the 193rd update—fills a ‘lacuna’ exposed in McLaren Indy v Alpa Racing
The long-running Mazur saga edged towards its finale as the Court of Appeal heard arguments on whether non-solicitors can ‘conduct litigation’. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School reports from a packed courtroom where 16 wigs watched Nick Bacon KC argue that Mr Justice Sheldon had failed to distinguish between ‘tasks and responsibilities’
Cheating in driving tests is surging—and courts are responding firmly. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort Law School charts a rise in impersonation and tech-assisted fraud, with 2,844 attempts recorded in a year
As AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images proliferate, the law may already have the tools to respond. In NLJ this week, Jon Belcher of Excello Law argues that such images amount to personal data processing under UK GDPR
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