Accessing "Access to Justice"

LONDON, November 18 - Access to justice is not the exclusive privilege of the rich
and famous. Claims of defamation by this week's hottest celeb, or attempts by
an oil company to curtail parliamentary questions with "super injunctions"
are what we hear and read about, however a much larger proportion of
litigation is pursued by everyday working people for a variety of reasons -
accident at work or road traffic accident to name just a few.

The Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA) undoubtedly went a
considerable way to dispel the belief that litigation was the purview of the
bourgeois and that the remainder of our society was required to suffer in
silence.

For the first time No Win No Fee agreements enabled solicitors
to recover their costs from the responsible party on the successful
settlement of the case. Claimants were not required to pay upfront solicitor
fees or pay costs if the claim went onto be unsuccessful. In addition, with
the introduction of self insured After-The-Event insurance (ATE) and the
evolution of Before-The-Event (BTE) insurance policies, solicitor firms could
recover the defendant's costs if the claim went onto be unsuccessful, while
also recovering the premium.

Removing the risk from the claimant by placing it on the
solicitor meant people of limited funds could bring claims for compensation
against a negligent party and by placing the risk incurred by the solicitor
onto the insurer, solicitor firms were more likely to take instruction on a
CFA basis, thus increasing Access to Justice.

Restrictions to Access to Justice therefore include (a) the
cost to the claimant; and (b) the risk to the solicitor. We can see that the
CFA has removed the cost to claimants and ATE/BTE policies have help to
alleviate the solicitor's risk. However there is one final stumbling block to
Access to Justice - the realisation of opportunity.

Opportunity is only realised if you know the opportunity
exists in the first place. Frequently opportunity is realised by individuals
or companies who have the funds to seek regular advice from a lawyer. This is
not the case for the vast majority of people. Claims management companies,
such as Accidents Direct, have helped thousands of regular people seek legal
advice which they may not have realised was available to them. Accidents
Direct has achieved this through heavy investment in online advertising,
bringing the opportunity created by the introduction of the CFA, ATE and BTE
to the attention of everyday people. Say Conditional Fee Agreement to most
people and they will assume it was legal semantics intended for those who
reside in ivory towers but say "No-Win-No-Fee" and you'll suddenly get a
reaction. This is clear evidence that companies such as Accidents Direct have
helped regular people realise their ability to access justice.

www.accidentsdirect.com/work-accidents.aspx

www.accidentsdirect.com/no-win-no-fee.aspx

www.accidentsdirect.com/

Adam Stocker, +44(0)20-7856-2474