I am afraid that your account of my talk to the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers ("Conference speakers take a bite out of Apil", The Lawyer, 26 November 1996) may have given the wrong impression.

Yes, I said that 24 per cent of people we surveyed were dissatisfied with the help available for personal injury cases. But I also said that 60 per cent were satisfied – the highest level of satisfaction for any type of law in the survey.

I acknowledged that the work personal injury lawyers do is valued by clients and pointed out the area is fraught with difficulties, one being that the media is poised to put the worst interpretation on things.

Marlene Winfield,

Senior policy and development officer,

National Consumer Council.