Politician accuses lawyers of 'self-interest' - seriously?

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.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/self-interest-of-lawyers-is-blocking-clin-neg-reform-mps-hear/5111104.article

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.