First4Lawyers in the media: December 2018

There’s been no let up on our media profile over the past few months.

You may have read our regular column in Claims, which covered more insights from our White Paper, Converting Clients: Calls, Clicks and Cash (pdf).

Our appointment of Jacqueline Speight from Minster Law as Head of Claims also received attention, with news stories in the Law Society Gazette and Claims.

We’ve also been keeping an eye on the latest Civil Liability Bill developments and issued a comment on behalf of our managing director Qamar Anwar highlighting the unjust nature of the Bill when it passed its final reading in the House of Commons at the end of October.

Qamar said: “MPs have let their constituents down by failing to halt reforms that only serve to line the pockets of the powerful insurance lobby.

“What’s more, the public have no idea what’s coming their way; our own research showed just 18% knew of the government’s plans.”

Also at the end of October, we made public our response to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) consultation, Claims management companies: Recovering the costs of FCA regulation and the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is part of its preparations for taking over the regulation of CMCs from the Ministry of Justice in April 2019.

We told the FCA how insurers are putting solicitors in potential breach of their code of conduct by passing on work obtained through cold-calling third parties involved in car accidents.

We also called for the FCA to introduce a risk-based fee structure so that financial services CMCs – which are responsible for 95% of complaints – pay the bulk of the cost of regulation.