Jon@TheMoneyShed said:
TheRewardGuy said:
Personal injury barrister - feel free to whine about your high car insurance premiums :
how are thing in 'that' sector?
Question...
If I ring injurylawyers4uuuu or some such place, are they actually a company or a proxy that dish out work to other law firms and then want a fee?
always wondered
Things are being squeezed in all areas of the Law.
Criminal barristers went on strike recently, but accepted a "1 year stay of execution" from the Government - many junior criminal barristers now have to claim tax credits. The Bar is very bad at dealing with the misleading Daily Mail press reports about Fat Cat Lawyers. Most junior criminal lawyers get paid far less than the public would expect despite the fact that they have to work very long hours prosecuting and defending serious cases. The best decision I ever made was getting out of crime about 6-7 years ago.
Family legal aid has been removed from the vast majority of cases and so the Courts are now full of people trying to present their own cases - I dread to think what injustices are being caused each day where there are no Lawyers present in Court to keep an eye on the Judges :-\
Personal injury case fees have also been slashed - much to the delight of the insurance companies. Some of the cuts are justified but, as always, the Government has gone overboard to please their chums in the city.
It's the usual story - Government uses the abuses by some in the industry as an excuse to penalise everyone rather than target their efforts at the abusers - that's much too difficult for them. Ironically, the reforms are killing off most high street law firms and the large factory outfits (that many considered to be the main offenders) will win again.
Having said that, one of the good things is the abolition of "referral fees" - previously when you phoned [insert silly lawyers4U type name], they simply took your basic details and sold your case on to a Solicitor (£500+) - this was very confusing for clients and meant that Solicitors started a case at -£500 and had to find ways to turn this into a profit. Even the insurance companies were secretly doing this too and then complaining about high costs ???
It does make me laugh when I hear insurance companies whining - I see many cases where the damages payouts are only ridiculously high because the insurance company has taken 2-3 months to find its cheque book and pay for the client's written off vehicle - while the client drives around in an expensive hire car.
Anyway, we're not the only people being bashed by the Government and there are people in much more difficult predicaments. I certainly wouldn't advise any of my kids to become lawyers. I think that medicine is now probably one of the very few professions left that hasn't been stamped on - maybe they will be next?
Rant over.
PS. I would definitely recommend that people pay the little extra for legal expenses insurance, since you will find it increasingly difficult to persuade any Solicitor to take on your case unless it is almost 100% guaranteed to be successful. They used to get paid 100% bonuses when they won cases to offset the cases that they lost - this meant that they could take 50/50 type cases and still make money. Now, they get a much reduced fee for winning and nothing for losing - it doesn't take a genius to work out what is going to happen. They will take on fewer borderline cases and you will be represented by non-qualified legal clerks etc instead of solicitors.