header-logo header-logo

A skeleton in the cupboard

21 October 2010
Issue: 7438 / Categories: Opinion , Personal injury
printer mail-detail

Many commentators have reflected that the trade in cases, especially those of accident victims, between lawyers and referrers is unseemly, if not downright dodgy.

Integrity, inherent dislike & embarrassment. Jon Robins revisits the referral fee conundrum

Many commentators have reflected that the trade in cases, especially those of accident victims, between lawyers and referrers is unseemly, if not downright dodgy. Just the mention of the old Claims Direct (Shames Direct, as The Sun would have it) and TAG, both now bust, will remind lawyers of the scandal of genuine accident victims left penniless after damages were consumed by sundry legal expenses.

Guilty without trial

The Mail on Sunday earlier this year ran a report about conveyancing solicitors paying estate agents “bribes” to get work leaving “ordinary consumers, who ultimately pay for it…being ripped off”. “This is no different from paying dodgy sheiks for arms contracts and it undermines the integrity of the profession,” one non-paying lawyer told the MoS. Slightly overstating the case possibly; but the payment of referral fees is a debate

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
back-to-top-scroll