I have never met a lawyer whose motivation came anywhere near self-interest.
It hasn’t
taken long for the New Year to usher in the familiar attacks on lawyers from politicians.
This is the recent assertion from former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that lawyers
who represent victims of medical negligence are obstructing proposed reforms of
the system. And that they are doing this out of ‘self-interest.’ I ran clinical
negligence cases for 25 years. I have trained firms in the work and provided
consultancy support for the last 5 years. I have lost count of the number of
cases that I have managed, supervised of helped with. In all this time I have
never met a lawyer whose motivation came anywhere near self-interest.
Not only do
claimant lawyers want to achieve the best possible outcome for innocent
victims, but they are also under a professional duty to do so. Mr. Hunt is
referring to a possible no-fault scheme that was mooted in 2021. The proposals
are set against the background of other proposed changes which would remove the
right of victims to private medical care, a right enjoyed by all victims of
injury caused by negligence. I discussed this last year and noted –
“In other words, why should an innocent victim of negligence
have to rely on treatment from the state, particularly when the need for that
treatment is caused by the state itself? That injustice becomes even greater in
cases of clinical negligence. This would lead to the unacceptable situation
where victims of NHS negligence would be in a worse position than any other
injured person.”
https://thestevecornforthblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/re-thnking-clinical-negligence-again.html
There are genuine and fundamental flaws in the proposed ‘reforms’. When
the basis of change is costs, you can be sure that the end result will be reduced
levels of damages, which are already calculated by reference to a victims’
basic needs for care, often for life. APIL’s Guy Foster explains –
‘Either that is going to cause an astronomical cost that
would not be sustainable for the system, or we would have to look at tariffs or
tokenistic types of damages which would not be responsive to the needs of
injured patients,’
One proposal mooted in the past has been to review the way in
which loss of earnings are calculated, so a victim who may never work again
receives compensation based on the national average earnings rather than their
real earnings. This overlooks the real world in which a person’s mortgage and other
living expenses are not based on any ‘national average’.
https://thestevecornforthblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/medical-negligence-striking-massive.html
Lawyers fees are earned
Mr. Hunt uses a familiar tactic of suggesting that much of the money
spent by the NHS in clinical negligence cases goes to the lawyers. This
overlooks the obvious point that the lawyers’ fees must be earned. They are
only paid for the work they do. Securing adequate compensation for a person who
suffers a catastrophic injury involves a huge amount of work and can take many years.
A lawyer acting for a victim might ultimately receive a large payment from the
NHS but it can sometimes take 5 years or more to be resolved, especially where cases
are defended until late in the day. In the meantime, the lawyers have incurred
the time and cost of running the case.
What sits behind the attacks?
But I think we need, as ever to look at what sits behind attacks on
lawyers by politicians on lawyers. The main targets are the victims. They are
the ones who need realistic as opposed to ‘tokensistic’ damages. They are the
ones who will see levels of compensation reduced. But it is those victims who will treated differently
from those injured at work, in a serious motor accident or in a public place. And
for no other reason than that their case is more costly to prove.
It is more palatable to blame those who fight for the victims.
