Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "There is a world of difference between such things occasionally happening, and your seeming view that it's nothing else but fraudulent applications. However your claim is plainly wrong since if this was really true, then why would these bent lawyers not simply sub the fees temporarily, get their payout and trebles all round as normal? It would just be a slightly different business model, adding some funding for fees wouldn't it?'"
Because no law firm wants to pay hundreds (or thousands) of pounds in upfront fees, to fund a claim that will probably get struck out or ultimately defeated. Anyone would issue anything when there was no fees, and thus no risk to do so, since costs are almost never awarded in the ET. The idea was based around the fact that the Respondent would pay a few grand for the Claimant to go away, rather than thousands of pounds in legal fees to fight the claim. Back in 2012 I saw some research that the average cost in legal fees for responding to an ET claim was £8,500. If you can offer the Claimant £3,000 to go away, it made good business sense.
Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "
Again, this can hardly be taken seriously. Whilst occasionally odd lawyers may waste their time and money flying hopeless kites, the plain fact is that no insurer is going to offer a quick settlement unless they think the chances of losing and paying more make it worth while. So plainly not a "near hopeless" case. '"
I have personally seen hopeless cases settled on a 50/50 basis. Also, there are (or were) entire business models based on paralegals writing speculative letters of claim on complete and utter rubbish cases, with the intent being the claim would be ditched should the insurer deny liability.
Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "
If there were lots of such "near hopeless" letters then there would be an almost identical number of near hopeless lawyers with near hopeless overdrafts, as there is a considerable cost involved just to reach the stage of even putting in a claim. '"
Agreed. And there are. Many small law firms run 'in the red'. Also, there is no shortage of law firms going out of business.
Quote: Ferocious Aardvark "
Now you are just being stupid. Anyone who knows about the law, knows that solicitors' costs are - by a huge margin - THE most closely scrutinised of any job in the world. If there is a dispute, then a bill has to be filed, listing if necessary every letter written, every telephone call made, and accounting for every minute of time spent. Each of which can be and are analysed and assessed in detail at lengthy assessments. You also know the harsh penalties if a bill of costs is "grossly inflated" and you also know the cash penalties that canand do follow, regardless of the amount claimed, if a reasonable offer on costs turns out to have been wrongly refused. You also know that insurance companies invariably employ specialist lawyers whose sole skill and job is in relation to attacking each and every single element of solicitors bills. So if there are any costs being "grossly inflated" on occasion, it is irrelevant, what would be a problem is if such "grossly inflated" costs were actually being paid. You talk as if paying insurers were some sort of helpless ingenues that stump up, baffled at the enormity of the sums. You could not be more wrong. '"
Your argument is self-defeating. The fact there is so much scrutiny of solicitors' bills, and an entire industry built around arguing over costs, reflects the concerns about grossly inflated legal bills. This is also another reason that the Government has introduced fixed-fees for many types of cases.
