I read Jonathan Goldsmith’s piece with a litigator’s eye.

I do not agree that current attacks on the profession (and I have in mind specifically those in part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill) are due to free market economics.

As I see it, litigation of all kinds is of economic benefit. My firm contributes a lot of tax and employs a lot of people.

Furthermore, litigation, being no more than privatised law enforcement, benefits the commercial life of the nation. Enforcement of laws is necessary for economic well-being.

Part 2 of the bill, on the other hand, will make litigation much less attractive to claimants. David vs Goliath-type litigation will be extremely dangerous, as the abolition of recoverable after-the-event (ATE) premiums will make ATE insurance unaffordable.

How many law-abiding, prudent citizens would take on a big corporation, facing a potential legal bill of hundreds of thousands of pounds, without insuring against that risk?

The government’s own impact assessment suggests that the Jackson reforms will result in a fall-off of litigation. In some areas of practice, that decline could amount to a catastrophic collapse. We know that non-debt litigation is consistently falling year by year as it is. The Jackson reforms will accelerate this decline, with consequent damage to the country’s economic life.

The government is mistaken in confusing the issue of referral fees in personal injury cases and the alleged ‘compensation culture’ with the damaging effects of Jackson on access to justice, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. These are the building blocks of our recovery whose interests the government seeks to promote. Yet they will be neutered by financial and other risks in enforcing their legitimate contractual rights against the big commercial conglomerates which have the resources to deprive them of those rights.

Litigation in England and Wales is becoming so difficult and costly that, if part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill passes, there will be a real danger that the rule of law will die for want of claimants to enforce it.

Robert Morfee, Clarke Willmott, Bristol