Winners in PI's 'Americanisation'
   The row over selling accident victims' names for £1 a time, which sparked apoplectic attacks in the heavyweight press about 'ambulance chasing' lawyers 'Americanising' personal injury litigation, raises serious issues: how is an accident victim expected to find a competent lawyer? Are personal injury lawyers really bringing transatlantic litigation to the UK and if so, to whose benefit or detriment?
   If 'Americanisation' means tacky advertising or raising the expectations of clients with hopeless and unmeritorious claims, then I do not support it.
   If 'Americanisation' means developing access to justice through easier procedures, wider funding options and more skilled practitioners, then I am all for that too.
   If 'Americanisation' means these real benefits, and I believe it does, we need to look at just who are the winners and losers. The real winners are the victims, bringing claims for compensation which are presently neglected and recovering ever-improving damages, despite the limitations of our system. The losers are insurance firms, which have had it too much their own way for too long, and which now find themselves paying justified damages to accident victims, on claims which previously may never have been brought.