A personal injury firm has launched a £1m advertising campaign to attack government reforms of the no-win no-fee system.

Birmingham firm Claim Today Solicitors (CTS) will spread its marketing drive across newspapers, television and the web for at least three months. The campaign is timed to coincide with changes being debated in the House of Lords under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill.

CTS will encourage people who may have a claim to register it before reforms are passed, while at the same time raising awareness of the government’s proposals to restrict the civil litigation system.

Rob Bhol, managing director of CTS, said the abolition of success fees paid by defendants will stop claimants from making legitimate claims. With defendants incentivised to hold out to trial, he argued, only the wealthiest of accident victims will be able to take their case forward.

Bhol added: ‘The only beneficiaries from the changes to no-win no-fee arrangements will be big insurance companies and rogue employers who neglect health and safety for their workers. In future many people with genuine claims for injuries caused by employers who owe them a duty of care will have no chance of seeking redress.

‘There is though a small window of opportunity before the law is changed and that's why we are urging all accident victims to claim today.’

The government’s reforms will be debated again in the Lords on 10 January, the second of an estimated seven readings to hear possible amendments.

They are largely in line with recommendations made for the litigation system in 2010 by Lord Justice Jackson, although he did not advocate the cuts to legal aid that are a controversial feature of the bill.