Andrew Dismore, co-ordinator of the Access to Justice Action Group, recently wrote a letter to the Guardian newspaper predicting that “there will be at least 25% fewer claimants” as a result of the proposed changes to the no win, no fee system.
This is the same Andrew Dismore who recently predicted, in relation to clinical negligence matters, the proposed changes would lead to “an increase in the number of cases of 1/3rd”.
Now, I recognise that it is theoretically possible that the number of clinical negligence claims might go up at the same time the overall number of claims might go down. However, given it is generally recognised that clinical negligence claims are, typically, riskier and much more expensive to run than other types of claim, it seems absurdly unlikely that they would go up significantly at the same time as the number of other claims significantly declines.
It is probably too late to have a grown up and informed debate on the impact of the proposed reforms, and only time will tell, however, perhaps the Access to Justice Group could be clear as to which types of claim they are predicting increasing or decreasing numbers and why.
I’ll drop an email to Andrew and let you know when I get a response.
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