Dear (name of client),

A threat to independent legal advice

We represented you in recent years and recovered compensation for you when you were injured.

Now, the government has published plans that would leave people, injured like you were, either having to use up most (or all) of theircompensation to pay for access to independent legal advice, or running a claim against the insurers on their own without the support of a lawyer.

We know that injured people need, and deserve, to have a lawyer giving them independent advice and winning them the maximumdamages owed.

We also know that when people don’t have a lawyer acting for them, they almost always get less in compensation dealing withinsurers direct. The government even admits this in the paper they have produced to justify their plans.

At the moment, when we win a case like yours, the loser – the insurer for the party that injured you – pays the legal fees at a fixedrate. If the plans go through, 95% of all personal injury claims will go into what is called the small claims court, where the injuryvictim, not the guilty party, has to pay the legal fees for their lawyers.

We are campaigning against the Government’s plans which will starve injured people of access to justice, cost taxpayers and theNHS over £150m a year while feeding fat cats in the insurance industry hundreds of millions of pounds in extra profit. You can findmore information about the issue and campaign by visiting We also attach a sheet with the key facts.

You may have read about this issue in the newspapers. There, you will have been told that the government is ‘cracking down’ onfraudulent whiplash claims and motorists will save £40.

In fact, the government is using misinformation, provided by insurance companies, to push through changes that will effect ALLpersonal injury claims made by honest people.

The government has said that it won’t force insurers to pass on savings to motorists. Insurance companies have already started toback down on their promises to share savings.

The only people who will benefit financially from these reforms will be insurance companies. The people who will suffer are theinnocent victims of injury.

We are hoping that you might help us to try and stop the plans by:

1. Signing a petition on the government website at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173099; and

2. Sending the attached letter either by post or email to your MP.

You can find details of your MP and their e-mail and postal address at

If you have any questions about the campaign please don’t hesitate to contact us by email on .

Thanks for any help that you can give.

Yours Sincerely,

Tom Jones, Head of Policy at Thompsons Solicitors

0114 217 2127