First4Lawyers in the media: June 2020

The way in which we all consume media has undergone significant changes throughout lockdown. However, that has not stopped us from being heard on key issues and developments.

It was on the subject of media consumption that our head of marketing, Andy Cullwick wrote our regular Claims blog during April.

At the beginning of April, both Yorkshire Business Daily and Yorkshire Post featured news of our Financial Conduct Authority authorisation.

Around the same time, Qamar’s letter to the editor was featured in the Law Society Gazette detailing the seeming lack of progress being made by law firms on transparency. Writing in response to the Legal Services Consumer Panel’s consumer impact report, Qamar argued that during this period of great uncertainty, increased transparency around price and service might actually drive new business.

Aside from coronavirus, the biggest news story for us was again on whiplash reform, with the Ministry of Justice finally announcing a further delay. Qamar’s comment, in which he noted a “certain irony” in the government delaying an online system “when everything else in the world seems to be going online,” was reported on the Press Association, Insurance Business, Insurance Times, Legal Futures and Solicitors Journal.

He went on to issue a warning about what we’ll be expecting of the government when it brings the reforms back, supposedly next year: “When these reforms come back, the MoJ need to ensure that new rules are published, and all the outstanding issues with the claims process are settled to allow businesses on all sides the proper time to prepare.

“When the time is right, we will also need reassurance that plans have been laid for a much-needed public information campaign – these reforms are bad enough for injured people without them being left clueless on the changes and how even to access the process.”

And finally, the subject of the delay was naturally the topic of our latest Claims blog in May.