Expert witness | Bringing your expert witness agency in-house

With the risk of a reduction of nearly 60 per cent in the fixed recoverable costs permitted by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on fast-track cases after April, some personal injury firms are bewildered as to how they will adapt to the new costs regime.

In a recent survey carried out by PI firm Bott & Co, 96 per cent of service providers in the personal injury sector said that this reduction is excessive and that PI firms will find it difficult to operate with fees set at this level.

Large firms may be protected as they are already running straight forward cases on a conveyor-belt basis and profiting from the economies of scale. Smaller local firms, not buffered by such volumes, may not be able to find a way to make fast-track PI viable and some firms may decide not to take on new claims come April 2013.

It seems that PI law firms risk losing a significant proportion of their income (£1,200 in costs to only £500 for RTA cases with up to £10,000 in damages). Being able to generate an additional income stream to offset this loss will prove crucial in order for some firms to survive.

In-house medico-legal agencies can enable firms to legitimately earn an additional stream of income which could make all the difference come April 2013.

?In-house agency

?By setting up an in-house medico-legal agency, claimant-focused PI firms can retain control of their medico-legal instructions, make their own decisions with regard to expert-sourcing and provide an income stream that could make all the difference as to whether they stay in business or not.

However setting up and instructing experts via an in-house medico-agency is a tall order especially if it is to give consideration to Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) compliance, which of course is paramount for solicitor practices.

Solicitors can get to work instantly by instructing their own cloud agency on the inJur portal. Everything a medico-legal agency could need is setup in the cloud. Solicitors just log into the secure online portal and type in what they want. For example: “Orthopaedic surgeons who specialise in lower limbs closest to my client in NW3 5GT who speaks Polish with appointments available in the next ?four weeks.”

Once this is done, the solicitor’s own agency instructs the best fit expert simply by clicking a button. Any medical records can also be uploaded to the instructions on the portal for instantaneous and secure delivery to the expert. Once the report is completed experts upload this with their invoice to the case on the site.

The many facets of inJur provide solicitors with the ability to privately blacklist any experts that their firm don’t wish to instruct again and to whitelist their better performing experts. All inJur users get the chance to rate experts and this continuous feedback from current users eventually leads to the best experts receiving accreditation. Parts of the accreditation process take account of the client care provided to the solicitors’ clients by the expert. Factors such as, the length of the appointment given and the quality of the consulting rooms, are all considered in the feedback from the clients. inJur has awarded accreditation to 25 medical experts and many more are being monitored for accreditation at any one time.

When considering having their own medico-legal agency, solicitors should examine and question the potential SRA compliance issues lurking behind the traditional ways of instructing ?medical experts.

First, can firms be sure that by devolving responsibility to a commercial agency, they are not putting the agencies desire for profits before the clients’ needs? If they can’t demonstrate to the SRA what processes they have put in place to ensure this is not the case they could be in breach of SRA regulations. Further, those firms being dictated to by their referral of claims as to which agency they need to instruct should seriously examine whether they fall foul of the SRA rules when working in ?this way.

Some law firms eschew agencies and conduct the search themselves. Derek Alker is a senior partner at Alkers Solicitors in Blackpool and started off this way. “We tried to locate appropriate medical experts to instruct ourselves, by word of mouth or by searching on the internet, which was time consuming and often fruitless,” he said. Firms may be sitting back thinking that this is the most compliant way to instruct experts, but think again. The firm needs to consider how they can show the SRA that they haven’t instructed an expert for their own convenience. For example, would there have been a more appropriate expert nearer if they had taken the care to find an alternative?

Today’s caseload often spreads across the UK, necessitating access to nationwide list of experts from a wide range of disciplines. In addition, firms may have no choice but to instruct an expert they have no prior knowledge of.

Alker continued: “We started to use a medico-legal agency called Personal Injury Helpline (PIH), which uses the inJur portal to find and instruct experts in the right location who meet all the criteria required by each client, as per SRA requirements. To date we have used PIH and inJur to instruct orthopaedic surgeons, GPs, psychologists, dental experts, dermatologists and many other specialists around the UK.”

Explaining how they work with Alkers, Sally Maude, an administrator at PIH said: “Once we have been briefed by the solicitor, the inJur portal gives us easy access to experts the length and breadth of the country, across all medical specialities. It takes only a few minutes to set up each case and to find the right expert for the claimant in the best location for them. The solicitor’s instruction letter is sent to the selected specialist via the inJur portal. The appointment for the claimant and the expert’s report are uploaded directly onto the system so that they reach us instantaneously. We have found that doing it this way gives the solicitors far more control, and using inJur means that the process from instruction to completed medical report is much quicker.”

?Compliance

?inJur is powered by a database of over 9,000 medical expert witnesses covering all disciplines across the UK. inJur gets feedback on regularly instructed experts and accredit those that merit it. These are flagged up on the portal as ‘tried and trusted’ for the benefit of all users so that they can ensure a better experience for ?their clients.

There is no reason why solicitor firms should use third-party middle man agencies. They make enormous profits but don’t give much back by way of client care. A number of the best experts won’t accept instructions from third-party agencies and clients complain of feeling rushed and cheated by ‘revolving door’ six minute appointment slots given by experts who ?are forced to cram clinics to make ?them profitable.

When we built the inJur system it was of primary importance to us that it should facilitate solicitors being able to offer a superior service to their clients at the same time as being able to create an extra source of income.

The portal’s built in considerations for client care include making sure the client can attend the most convenient appointment with the most appropriate expert for their individual needs. This takes account of language, cultural, religious and gender requirements as well as location.

It is these considerations that are automatically provided for by the portal that contribute to excellent SRA compliance for solicitors.

Setting up an in-house agency is legitimate if the correct procedures are in place. The SRA have approved AIMLA’s CPD course entitled, ‘The legality and benefits of solicitors instructing their own medico-legal agency’ which explains to solicitors, who are thinking about taking this step, what they need to do to make sure their firm is compliant. Topics covered include client care and their client care letter, the use of accredited experts, client’s best interest and the premises used for the in-house agency.

Cash flow and having to pay experts ahead of claims settling is often a concern for solicitor firms looking to set up their own agency. Having a cloud agency on inJur enables the in-house agency to tap into and benefit from the aggregate booking of instructions. They profit from the lower fees and longer payment terms that experts can offer inJur as a result of this. The benefits are obvious to all PI firms and as increasing numbers of firms form alternative business structures, this model makes a perfect fit to enhance its profit-generating activities.

The icing on the cake though is the peace of mind afforded to solicitor practices who can instruct their own cloud agency.