Last week I let myself down. Sadly, this is not unusual.

It happened when I attended a so-called seminar.

Infact, it was not a seminar. A seminar is about something.

The root of the word seminar means sowing seed – semen – seed – I’m not being rude – this is the etymologically of the word! – “semen” being the Latin – hence, sowing the seed of an idea or theory.

However, this so-called seminar didn’t sow many ideas, theories, or facts. That is, apart from a load of puff not dissimilar to my eight year old son blowing those lighter-than-the-wind seeds off a dandelion.

By contrast, there was no shortage of testosterone. Which was entirely predictable as this so-called seminar was at a flash hotel in central Rooneyville – you know the kind with the enormous Palladian lobby, the curly-wurly chrome staircase, enormous plate-glass windows, mirrors big enough to satisfy even Rooney-sized egos.

Not only did the event call itself a seminar, according to the MC, Andrew Twambley, it was the “inaugural” seminar.

When I booked my place I hadn’t noticed the word “inaugural”. I simply noticed Claims Management Seminar. I thought, that sounds intriguing. Has claims management, I asked myself, reached such a level of respectability that it merits a seminar. Convince me!

Inaugural is a good word. Even, perhaps, a “posh” word, with a hint of the regal. Hail the new the Emperors – the new guardians of the oppressed – who are, hey-presto, Claims Management Companies. Here, at the heart of the entrepreneurial Personal Injury market – Manchester.

So what was the so-called seminar all about?

I’ll come to that.

There was chat, and back-chat and more chat and cosy chat and funny chat and well, more chat.

And there was a debate. Well, not really much of a debate because a debate usually has a subject, motion, formulated proposition etc.

Well, to be accurate, there was a kind of satellite debate about fraud and referral fees. In this context John Spencer did present persuasive argument supported by considered evidence. Hurrah! He suggested that the liability insurance industry is earning about £2.6 BILLION – yes BILLION, from referral fees and commission payments.

By contrast the total cost of fraud to the insurance industry (£40 per motor insurance premium, allegedly) is £900 MILLION. Interesting imbalance. Not unlike, perhaps, the imbalance between insurer spin and the un-spun real world.

It seems all the more feeble in hindsight that I lacked the courage to present my own argument which is this: The Ministry of Justice likes CMCs. They present a model that accords with two key creeds of Government – i.) the devaluation of the legal process – law being simply a buyable tool; and ii.) the law being a commodity package-able in more or less exactly the same way as the sale of insurance.

The application of these two creeds results in The CMC sector – Law done by market traders and data gathers in an environment of toothless regulation – a free-for-all market, in short, what we have now.

And my real point here is this: it is this model that the Legal Service Board is tasked to grow through Alternative Business Structures (ABS).

The reason why I think this so-called seminar was so without content was because most people who attended will be the beneficiaries of Government changes – the ABS legal landscape is exactly what CMCs want. They do not need lawyers. The business that buys the client is the business who controls the market. And that, in essence, is exactly what a CMC is.

I was hesitant to speak out. I didn’t trust myself to say what I thought or wanted to say without stuttering. I have feared my stutter all my life. Although perhaps in this context my stutter worked for me because I doubt very much that my thoughts would have been applauded by the CMC business world. Especially because I’m a Southerner in a business world dominated by Northern wit along with a touch of East End guile.

Oh dear.

The image is another Gillray borrowed from Wikigalleries called Jack a-both sides.

John Holtom

Article posted on Wednesday, May, 11th, 2011 at 7:24 pm

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