Letters: Untrained advisers

Untrained advisers

Sir: Your story on the inquiry into the activities of unqualified legal advisers - or claims assessors - includes a comment by the inquiry chairman, Brian Blackwell, that solicitors may have a vested interest in "closing out competition" (report, 13 August).

The solicitors' profession makes no apology whatsoever for raising concerns about the activities of unqualified, unregulated and uninsured claims assessors. At best these people act as unnecessary and expensive middlemen in the legal process. At worst, they can be outright crooks. All too often solicitors have to pick up the pieces when these untrained legal advisers ruin people's chance of proper compensation.

If there was a growing industry of unqualified heart surgeons, nobody would be surprised if the medical profession cried foul. Why should the legal profession's opposition to unqualified and unregulated legal advisers be viewed any differently?

London WC2