Naomi Rovnick
Heavyweight personal injury (PI) firms, including Leigh Day & Co and Pannone & Partners, have signed up as shareholders of Manchester firm Amelans' TV-advertised claims company injurylawyers4u.
Leigh Day, Pannones and well-known North West PI practices Donns and Silverbeck Rymer are part of a group of 25 firms to have a shareholding in injurylawyers4u, a company set up to provide accident victims with direct access to solicitors.
Unlike the much maligned claims management companies such as Claims Direct, injurylawyers4u will not deduct anything from the damages won by slip, trip, road and other accident victims. The company will be funded through the success fees won by the solicitors, who will fund the PI cases through conditional fee arrangements.
Most of the 25 firms with shares in injurylawyers4u are based in the North West of the country, although this is by accident rather than design, according to Amelans partner Andrew Twambley.
"When we were thinking about which firms to approach to get involved in this, we just looked at the solicitors we know who we'd be happy to take home to our mother's house for tea," said Twambley.
