Clients 'will have to pay more' after portal extension

Clients will have to pay more for a proper service following yesterday's extension of the personal injury portal, a leading claimant lawyer has said.

Employer's and public liability cases worth up to £25,000 will now fall inside the portal for the first time. Where liability is contested, the fast track fixed costs scheme will apply.

Claimant solicitors will be able to recover £900 in costs for cases worth up to £10,000 and £1,600 for cases worth up to £25,000.

David Marshall, managing partner of Anthony Gold, said portal fees were too low and had been based on a 'grade D fee earner', a paralegal or a trainee, doing the work.

He said that some of the injuries involved could be very serious, but the economic incentive on claimants was to accept the first available offer.

"It's not a very fair system," Marshall said. "Solicitors may have to tell some clients 'you will have to pay us more to do a proper job'."

Marshall said the only evidence available on the impact of the original RTA portal, carried out by Professor Paul Fenn, found that costs had come down, but so had damages.

He added that he believed many firms would adopt a modified conditional fee approach, where all deductions from damages were capped at 25 per cent.

Simon Gibson, managing partner of SGI Legal, a new personal injury ABS, said he saw the extended portal as being a "very slow burn" from an employer's and public liability perspective.

"The insurers' database is a long, long way from being complete," he said. "When you get a new instruction from a new client, you need to know who insures the defendants. Without the details, the portal is irrevelant.

"This is a classic case of the government rushing the issue without having the infrastructure in place."

SGI Legal has four partners who are managers rather than fee earners, and nearly 60 staff, of whom only six are qualified lawyers.

Gibson said where the injury was serious, but where liability was admitted and the case fell inside the portal, there was "no doubt whatsoever" that the loser would be the client.

"We believe we have a system which is very effective, but the gap has to be plugged and the person doing the plugging is the person with the injury," he said.

"Personal injury lawyers will have to be very careful to budget cases and be transparent with the client.

"Clients will only contribute so much. Lawyers will have to review their cost base and use of IT, otherwise their model could be unsustainable."