Personal injury news roundup: 7 days ended 26 Feb 2013:
It seems the legal industry simply can’t win, as fears raise regarding how personal injury compensation claims are handled now and post-Legal Aid bill.
In fact, one news story I read about this week went on about how one shopkeeper is absolutely terrified about how his personal details may have been disseminated far and wide in the wake of a hospital stay. 51 year old Raymond Morrell, the owner and operator of Waltham Abbey’s Abbey Off-Licence, says he’s been positively swamped with unsolicited emails and phone calls from personal injury lawyers and claims management companies since he finished his two week hospital stay for a slipped disc, and that all this attention from people and firms has only started after his injury.
Personal injury solicitor firms have been ringing him up at the shop and sending emails to his business address, Mr Morrell says, ever since he gave his personal details to the hospital. It seems a bit suspicious to him, and I have to agree – for what it’s worth, it’s more or less obvious that somehow his contact details have been released to interested parties.
Someone obviously let the cat out of the bag it seems, and Mr Morrell has been trying to get to the bottom of it, considering how medical professionals have this whole ‘your personal details are sacrosanct’ thing. Of course it might not have been a hospital staffer that sold on the information, but this whole referral fee thing is getting out of hand – luckily the new Legal Aid bill will do away with the practice – or is it lucky after all?
In fact, there are some legal experts that feel the new Legal Aid legislation, which goes into effect this April, could cause serious damage to the legal profession – and that includes the banning of referral fees. Of course I really don’t see how this could be a bad thing, as nobody likes being hounded by unsolicited texts, emails, and phone calls, but there is a worry that without law firms being able to purchase the personal details of injured Brits, the number of personal injury claims could plummet, resulting in fewer solicitor firms being able to keep their doors open.
I don’t know about you, but this might not necessarily be a terrible thing. There’s an awful lot of bad lawyers out there – not that I’m naming names, mind you – and winnowing the field might be a healthy thing to be honest!