LawAlliance aims to improve personal injury case handling

Sixty law firms have launched an alliance aimed at establishing better links with insurers in an attempt to cut costs and speed up the handling of personal injury (PI) claims.

The independent LawAlliance group, spearheaded by firms including Davies Arnold Cooper, brings together claimant PI lawyers from across England.

LawAlliance chair Chris Lodge, a partner with Kent firm Andrew Gardner Partnership, said: "Work is sometimes hard to come by, and one of the advantages of LawAlliance is that we can speak with one voice."

The alliance will work together with InterResolve, a problem-resolution business set up in 2004 by businesspeople and lawyers to handle claims referred from its 'Bodily Injury Claims' scheme.

The scheme will involve no referral fees and fixed rates designed to keep costs to claimants down.

Lodge said LawAlliance would also aim to help lawyers and insurers communicate better through streamlined mechanisms for handling claims.

As well as the law firms involved, insurers such as Allianz Cornhill and a number of medical reporting agencies have signed up to LawAlliance.

Other claimant PI firms are welcome to join the alliance, said Lodge.