Articles From the Team

Defendant PI/Insurance market – Thriving or Defunct?

It is that time of year again where the dark, cold nights are creeping in and with that comes the looming threat of economic downturn.

I specialise in defendant personal injury and insurance recruitment which includes clinical negligence, professional indemnity and property damage recruitment across the Midlands/South West and Hampshire. There has been wide spread speculation that personal injury work is on the demise due to the burden and pressures of the new reforms. This may be truth in part as we have seen a wave of closures, take overs of claimant personal injury firms recently.

Similarly there has been a change in the defendant market in respect of fraud work, insurer panels are trying to concentrate the number of panel firms that handle fraud work and consequently some major players in the field have had to lose their dominant fraud teams.

However it is not all doom and gloom, where claimant personal injury has taken a knock an olive branch has been offered by the defendant world. They are not only considering and offering defendant personal injury roles to claimant solicitors, but rather encourage applications from anyone who has particular experience of handling high value complex employers liability, public liability work who are now keen to turn to their hand to defendant personal injury work. I have recently made a couple of placements of claimant injury solicitors who specialise in EL/PL work into leading defendant injury firms in Birmingham and Southampton.

This also extends to insurance work, mainly clinical negligence where top tier defendant clinical negligence firms that act for the NHSLA, MDU are also actively encouraging and supporting applications from claimant clinical negligence solicitors. I recently attended an agency briefing with a leading defendant clinical negligence firm in Hampshire and it was encouraging to hear that their most recent additions to the team were from claimant backgrounds. They confirmed that going forward if a solicitor handling their own claimant clinical negligence work was interested in working for the NHSLA they would welcome their application.

I also look after professional indemnity recruitment across the Midlands, Oxford and South West. Again even in this area of law, leading defendant insurance firms are happy to receive CVs of newly qualified solicitors who have excellent academics and have undertaken either a professional negligence or commercial litigation seat during their training contract and now keen to specialise in defendant professional indemnity. These firms are offering a unique opportunity for solicitors experienced or newly qualified to have conduct of their own high value complex claims where you will act for leading professional indemnity insurers and on their behalf advise architects, engineers, surveyors and their insurers when faced with the threat of professional negligence claims.

So, although the market does at a first glance appear to be bleak, it is not all bad and I’m a firm believer that out of everything negative there is always a positive!

I specialise in defendant personal injury, clinical negligence and professional indemnity recruitment across the Midlands, Oxford, Bristol, Newport Winchester, Chelmsford and Southampton and keen to help solicitors/paralegals/legal executives make their next career move.

If you would like to discuss new opportunities with top tier firms please contact BCL Legal or call 0161 819 7475.