For most the 20 years and more that I have been working as a litigator, the Civil Justice system has been on the receiving end of public and private complaints. And not without good reason! Delays are systemic. Mistakes are legion. And the administration, although usually done by thoroughly decent people, is often appalling.

At one of our local County Courts files are routinely lost. With some Central London Courts, if you expect a reply to a letter, or a date for an application to a Court, sooner than 3 months, think again.

It is like the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) used to be in 1980s when it was originally set up. At that time, our advice to clients was plead not guilty. This was because there was always a very good chance that the CPS would simply lose the file, so the charges would be dropped. The Civil Justice system is now as badly run as the CPS was then.

It is probably not fair to attack the Country Courts because it is they who are so poorly resourced by the Ministry of Justice. It probably is fair to attack the Ministry of Justice itself which is in charge of the administration of Justice.

The simple truth is that the Civil Justice system is low on the politicians agendas. It is a thorny and ancient system which everyone wants to reform but no one can work out how to do it. What the politicians really want to do is to shunt it out into the commercial world, to privatise it. It would suit politicians of all colours if Justice could be turned into a saleable commodity.

This is exactly what is being done with Personal Injury claims. What is being put into effect for Personal Injury claims, is likely to be put into effect for other Civil Justice disputes in the future.

For a large proportion of road traffic accident cases, legal redress will be about filling in forms, then shooting those forms down an internet portal. This doesn’t look much like a legal system, more a retail activity. You submit your list of orders, then a few weeks later, a delivery van appears at your door with the goods.

At Legal Solutions Partnership, we shall learn the new system and make work it with maximum efficiency. As lawyers, we shall argue the legal points that need to be argued in the interests of our clients (after all, the Solicitors Code of Conduct requires that we should – this is our reason for existing!).

The question is: who wins out of this dramatic change? It’s too early to say. The new legal process comes into effect on 30th April 2010. But I know where I’d put my money. It would be in the hands of the big corporates, especially the insurers. Perhaps that is all the more reason for a small maverick firm to exist – to fight the big corporates by offering a real service that is about clients and not commodities!

Article posted on Friday, February, 11th, 2011 at 12:31 pm

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