Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:47 pm  

Solicitors do cold call.

One summer holiday during my university years I took a job at a firm of solicitors. One of my many duties was to get employment tribunal listings off the internet and cold call respondents to see if they wanted representation.

In addition, I was also told to surf internet forums and message people who posted with employment law issues, particularly if they had been dismissed or were alleging discrimination. If they responded my next step was to get their details, 'for a chat'. They were then called by a solicitor. Good cases were signed up on a no win no fee, with the firm taking 35% of whatever the claimant got.

Most cases settled shortly after we issued in the employment tribunal. Over one summer holiday I generated the firm £15,000 through claimant leads alone. I was paid next to nothing for doing this.

I do not believe for one moment that we were the only firm doing this sort of thing.

At the time I had no idea the practice was against the Solicitors' rules.

I also remember going to court on PI cases and seeing what I can only describe as 'client coaching' by the firm, basically telling the client what to say to maximise the chance of a successful claim. I later discovered this was because most clients were on a conditional fee agreement and the firm would only get paid if the claim was successful.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:51 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

Solicitors do cold call.

One summer holiday during my university years I took a job at a firm of solicitors. One of my many duties was to get employment tribunal listings off the internet and cold call respondents to see if they wanted representation.

In addition, I was also told to surf internet forums and message people who posted with employment law issues, particularly if they had been dismissed or were alleging discrimination. If they responded my next step was to get their details, 'for a chat'. They were then called by a solicitor. Good cases were signed up on a no win no fee, with the firm taking 35% of whatever the claimant got.

Most cases settled shortly after we issued in the employment tribunal. Over one summer holiday I generated the firm £15,000 through claimant leads alone. I was paid next to nothing for doing this.

I do not believe for one moment that we were the only firm doing this sort of thing.

At the time I had no idea the practice was against the Solicitors' rules.

I also remember going to court on PI cases and seeing what I can only describe as 'witness coaching' by the firm, basically telling the client what to say to maximise the chance of a successful claim. I later discovered this was because most clients were on a conditional fee agreement and the firm would only get paid if the claim was successful.

Sounds like you seriously need to do the right thing and shop this firm to the SRA and get them all struck off.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:51 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Only tangentially relevant ... how do I stop the two phone calls I get every evening between 6pm and 7pm, one of which says that "we believe" that I am entitled to £xxxx for mis-sold PIP and the other of which says that "our records show" that I am entitled to £xxxx for mis-sold PIP ?

I have not been mis-sold any PIP by the way.

I have had a shed-load of text spam over this. Now it's just possible that I might been miss-sold PIP. However, why would I ring back some scummy profiteers who spam me about it – and want me to ring them back at my cost?

If I made a bad call I made a bad call. I actually find myself thinking that I'd rather just let something go than actually give spammers some money.

Actually, let's make it clear: I f••king hate spammers of any variety, even when I might actually be interested in the product/service they're trying to sell.

I regularly get spammers on my blog – and I don't want to pre-moderate comments, so I just continue to delete their spam on a several-times-a-day basis. Price worth paying etc. But they wind me up – trying to profit from what is, at the end of the day, my work.

~rassin frassin~

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:07 pm  

My business is plagued by PI vultures; we had an individual injured at work recently and she appointed a local firm to represent her - 48 hours later, they had one of their admin staff parked outside our site at shift change times, stopping people on their way in and out, asking if they'd been involved in an incident in the past x years and handing out literature.

Just like vexatious Employment Tribunal claims, it's almost always easier to settle these things early - that can create a culture however, when said claimant returns to work with a cheque in their pocket and blatantly breaches the terms of the confidentiality agreement/COT3, by blabbing to their work-mates; next thing you know, everyone's at it.

It's bloody infuriating.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:12 pm  

Mintball - you can easily claim back PPI yourself without using an agent or solicitor.

A quick letter to the firm who mis-sold you it will usually suffice.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:14 pm  

bren2k wrote:

My business is plagued by PI vultures; we had an individual injured at work recently and she appointed a local firm to represent her - 48 hours later, they had one of their admin staff parked outside our site at shift change times, stopping people on their way in and out, asking if they'd been involved in an incident in the past x years and handing out literature.

Just like vexatious Employment Tribunal claims, it's almost always easier to settle these things early - that can create a culture however, when said claimant returns to work with a cheque in their pocket and blatantly breaches the terms of the confidentiality agreement/COT3, by blabbing to their work-mates; next thing you know, everyone's at it.

It's bloody infuriating.

One of the terms of any decently drafted confidentiality agreement / COT3 is that the amount paid by the firm to 'buy off' the claim instantly becomes repayable if the employee blabbs to their mates.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:17 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

You should change the name of the thread as NO personal injury solicitor will ever cold call you or text you. If they say they are, then they are lying. i get loads of these texts but i have never had one from anyone claiming to be a solicitor and would be amazed if you have.

Any solicitor doing this would be struck off so don't believe everything you read. You are being texted by conmen. basically what they do is then sell the details they get to some so-called "claims management company" who then it turn look to sell it on to solicitors prepared to pay a referral fee.

But as well as being barred from any form of cold-calling, solicitors are also barred from receiving referrals from companies who generate them by cold calling and it would be no defence for a solicitor to claim they "didn't know" how the claims were generated.

I am afraid that's not the case. These people have even written with an 'engagement letter' and imply in their letter that they have already been more or less signed up. Interestingly, in their T&Cs they say a typical simple claim will generate c. £1,500 and their fees are typically something like £1,200 to £2,000 IF things go smoothly AND they would hope to recover these from the other side. There is insurance, etc but as I read it you still carry a potential risk but they certainly reap some reward come what may!

Rather more worrying last week Mrs D got a call purporting to be from from the party's insurers asking all sorts of details about my son's accident. Remarkably, they were saying they were going to offer him £1,500 (surprise, surprise) even though he'd never asked them for a penny and the accident was yoks ago. Why would they do that? To me either because (a) they had been contacted by solicitors purporting to act for my son without authorisation; (b) it was the firm / their agents pretending to be the insurers to reel him in as a client; or, perhaps more worrying (c) they were unilaterally "acting" for him with the intention of defrauding the insuers purely for their own personal gain - ie compensatio + time costs. Please tell me (c) does not / cannot happen?


Tried calling the SRA this morning but typically option 4 - for Joe Public to coomplain / chat was too busy and it just said goodbye! Great to see that the regulators taking an interest!

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:19 pm  

The Video Ref wrote:

One of the terms of any decently drafted confidentiality agreement / COT3 is that the amount paid by the firm to 'buy off' the claim instantly becomes repayable if the employee blabbs to their mates.

The confidentiality aspect is virtually impossible to enforce, without recourse to yet more legal representation; from an employers perspective, the cost of the litigious culture that's developed in this country is a bloody nightmare.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:38 pm  

Dally wrote: I am afraid that's not the case. These people have even written with an 'engagement letter' and imply in their letter that they have already been more or less signed up. Sounds odd. They clearly know the details and of the accident so you'd need to find out from them why they think they are instructed. I'd ring the senior partner. Dally wrote: Interestingly, in their T&Cs they say a typical simple claim will generate c. £1,500 and their fees are typically something like £1,200 to £2,000 IF things go smoothly AND they would hope to recover these from the other side. There is insurance, etc but as I read it you still carry a potential risk but they certainly reap some reward come what may! If it's a bog standard claim then they get paid about 1200 if they win and NIL if they don't. You don't (presently) carry any risk, but the government is hell bent on changing all that from April. Dally wrote: Rather more worrying last week Mrs D got a call purporting to be from from the party's insurers asking all sorts of details about my son's accident. Remarkably, they were saying they were going to offer him £1,500 (surprise, surprise) even though he'd never asked them for a penny and the accident was yoks ago. Why would they do that? To me either because (a) they had been contacted by solicitors purporting to act for my son without authorisation; (b) it was the firm / their agents pretending to be the insurers to reel him in as a client; or, perhaps more worrying (c) they were unilaterally "acting" for him with the intention of defrauding the insuers purely for their own personal gain - ie compensatio + time costs. Please tell me (c) does not / cannot happen? Insurers are bent. I wouldn't rule out them doing anything at all. But this sounds like their standard practice of trying to "nip claims in the bud", i.e. make a cash offer to get rid of any possible claim straightaway, and so save on legal costs. Now, i can see the economic argument of that, but it is the insurers and their government slaves who are whingeing on about the compensation culture, generating claims and faking injuries - yet what else is this, if not a blatant temptation to take the money, injured or not? With no medical, no proof, nothing? If this scandalous behaviour doesn't fuel fake claims - what does? Tried calling the SRA this morning but typically option 4 - for Joe Public to coomplain / chat was too busy and it just said goodbye! Great to see that the regulators taking an interest! Regardless of that, you must understand that reporting anyone for anything requires a bit more than a phone call before they can do anything. After all, if you were a solicitor against whom a fake call was made, you wouldn't expect to be struck off on the strength of a phone complaint. So i understand why people maybe can't be bothered, and i can't help that, but really you should make a formal complaint and it's pretty easy to do so, even if it will require a few minutes of your time: http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#how-report-sra Complete the form, email it to them. Good job well done.

Dally wrote: I am afraid that's not the case. These people have even written with an 'engagement letter' and imply in their letter that they have already been more or less signed up. Sounds odd. They clearly know the details and of the accident so you'd need to find out from them why they think they are instructed. I'd ring the senior partner. Dally wrote: Interestingly, in their T&Cs they say a typical simple claim will generate c. £1,500 and their fees are typically something like £1,200 to £2,000 IF things go smoothly AND they would hope to recover these from the other side. There is insurance, etc but as I read it you still carry a potential risk but they certainly reap some reward come what may! If it's a bog standard claim then they get paid about 1200 if they win and NIL if they don't. You don't (presently) carry any risk, but the government is hell bent on changing all that from April. Dally wrote: Rather more worrying last week Mrs D got a call purporting to be from from the party's insurers asking all sorts of details about my son's accident. Remarkably, they were saying they were going to offer him £1,500 (surprise, surprise) even though he'd never asked them for a penny and the accident was yoks ago. Why would they do that? To me either because (a) they had been contacted by solicitors purporting to act for my son without authorisation; (b) it was the firm / their agents pretending to be the insurers to reel him in as a client; or, perhaps more worrying (c) they were unilaterally "acting" for him with the intention of defrauding the insuers purely for their own personal gain - ie compensatio + time costs. Please tell me (c) does not / cannot happen? Insurers are bent. I wouldn't rule out them doing anything at all. But this sounds like their standard practice of trying to "nip claims in the bud", i.e. make a cash offer to get rid of any possible claim straightaway, and so save on legal costs. Now, i can see the economic argument of that, but it is the insurers and their government slaves who are whingeing on about the compensation culture, generating claims and faking injuries - yet what else is this, if not a blatant temptation to take the money, injured or not? With no medical, no proof, nothing? If this scandalous behaviour doesn't fuel fake claims - what does? Tried calling the SRA this morning but typically option 4 - for Joe Public to coomplain / chat was too busy and it just said goodbye! Great to see that the regulators taking an interest! Regardless of that, you must understand that reporting anyone for anything requires a bit more than a phone call before they can do anything. After all, if you were a solicitor against whom a fake call was made, you wouldn't expect to be struck off on the strength of a phone complaint. So i understand why people maybe can't be bothered, and i can't help that, but really you should make a formal complaint and it's pretty easy to do so, even if it will require a few minutes of your time: http://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor.page#how-report-sra Complete the form, email it to them. Good job well done.

Re: Personal Injury Solicitors : Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:49 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Insurers are bent. I wouldn't rule out them doing anything at all. But this sounds like their standard practice of trying to "nip claims in the bud", i.e. make a cash offer to get rid of any possible claim straightaway, and so save on legal costs. Now, i can see the economic argument of that, but it is the insurers and their government slaves who are whingeing on about the compensation culture, generating claims and faking injuries - yet what else is this, if not a blatant temptation to take the money, injured or not? With no medical, no proof, nothing? If this scandalous behaviour doesn't fuel fake claims - what does?

I appreciate that insurers may do that - indeed I said that to Mrs D BUT the fact that so much time has elapsed since the accident seems odd, especially as their call arrived at about the same time as the soliitors' unsolicited T&Cs!

As to SRA - just spoken to them. Did not divulge names as I wanted to speak to the firm first. Tried calling them but they've gone home for the day.