Master Insurers & Crooked Lawyers

I don’t expect this to be a many starred thread I simply require to get some of the info I’ve unwillingly garnered over two decades out there. A cathartic exercise really. In the real world if people ask me what I do when I start talking I time how many seconds it takes their eyes to glaze over.

Every solicitor in private practice in Scotland must have a ‘practicing certificate’. Having gone through their education and training they thereafter acquire their practicing certificate by paying into the ‘Master Insurance Policy’. The master insurance policy is purchased via the Law Society of Scotland. It covers solicitors’ negligence and is supposed to be there for the benefit of wronged clients. It’s called the ‘master policy’ because it is one policy that every solicitor in Scotland must pay into – and it is rather cheap. (I think at the moment it comes in at roughly £600/annum). I paid more in insurance for my barber shop.

A recent (heavily redacted) investigation undertaken by a consumer watchdog into this insurance practice found that, in the main, solicitors were quite happy with it and didn’t feel they were missing out on choice. Of course the solicitors are happy worth it – this policy is NOT for the protection of wronged clients - it is the solicitors’ protection racket.

The policy impacts society at large when it comes to industrial health claims – operating at its most cold blooded level. To use but one example – victims of asbestos. The solicitors simply time out any legal action to ensure that anyone due compensation dies before the case is concluded.

One Scottish solicitor, who also trained as a GP had the audacity to claim that pleural plaques (an indicator of asbestosis) are good for you. She was engaged by the insurer (Royal Sun Alliance – A Rothschild holding for anyone who’s interested. They also proved the cover of the Master Insurance Policy – Brokered by Marsh UK). The courts had found the insurers liable to pay compensation to the victims so the insurers appealed. Here she is claiming the pleural plaques lining your lungs are a sign of a healthy body.


Most solicitors get most of their work most of the time from insurance companies. It’s a mutual back scratching situation. Solicitors have no interest in changing the situation and the insurance industry is loving it – they have our legal profession in their pocket for an absolute song. Professional solicitors are grossly over represented among our parliamentarians – the insurers have them in their pocket for a song too.

If you are wronged by a solicitor and seek recompense by pursuing that solicitor through the courts, in Scotland, there is no incentive whatsoever for any solicitor to take your case. If they go around suing each other the premiums on their mutual policy will go up dramatically. It’s the lengths they will go to to maintain this closed shop protection racket that are truly cause for concern.

We have an outfit here, not many people have heard of it called the Legal Defence Union – a group of lawyers – known only to lawyers – who specialise in protecting solicitors accused of negligence or fraud by former clients. I leaflet published by them gives some rather useful hints and tips on how to deter former clients from following through on complaints.

They explain their origins and purpose to the Scottish Parliament in this document

Scottish Parliament

All well and good if there was extant a ‘Consumer Defence Union’ but there isn’t. Here’s some of their advice on handling complaining clients.

While some text from the document has been reworded in certain instances to protect the source, the questions in the document may read to many outside the bubble world of a ‘crooked lawyer’ like a set of directions for taking revenge against clients who have complained about their solicitors. The document asks such questions of solicitors :

What do you know of your clients background? Does your client or any family members have a criminal record? You can establish their relationship with the Police through contacts. Information on criminal records can undermine your client’s position and any evidence they may give in court.

Have you contacted colleagues in the area to find out what other professional services your client uses?
Financial details of your client may prove a key factor in how far a client can pursue any legal action against you e.g. does your client have a mortgage? are they overdrawn at the bank? credit checks?

If your client has a business, local accountants may be able to provide information on their current financial state or matters such as Income Tax irregularities which can be acted upon in your interests.

Does your client receive any state benefits? Anonymous information even if false can suspend their benefits for an indefinite period and undermine your client’s will to pursue any complaint to an outcome in court.

Do you have knowledge of or access to your client’s medical history? This could prove useful to your position if it can be obtained.

In a further paragraph it is suggested the solicitor ask his office staff to collate all local information on the client and submit it. A final suggestion, which clearly aims to deny the client any access to legal representation reads : “Contacting other solicitors in the area or your local bar association, alerting colleagues of your opinions of the client is to be encouraged.”

Sources claimed the SLCC is determined not to go out of its way to look for such controversial material as described above, “for fear of upsetting the Law Society & Marsh”.

In fact they have a myriad of techniques available...

Dealt with a rogue lawyer, the Law Society or Master Policy ? You have been hacked. Oh yes you have. HACKING IN PUBLIC LIFE in the UK is much more commonly practised and goes far wider than one rashly closed down newspaper, as anyone who has become a figure of public interest, a celebrity, a politician, a critic of industry or vested interests, a campaigner of any kind, and yes, anyone who has made some kind of court claim against big business, the professions or even public services should know. I even know journalists who have been hacked, because they were investigating some kind of scandal which vested interests, some political, some commercial, and some public, did not want their names, companies or organisations dragged through the media in entirely justifiable headlines exposing scandal upon scandal.

So they hack you – then what?

Strangely enough, all of these individuals now caught in the system appear to have suffered a string of multiple problems in their life which were not present before they had become involved with the legal system, and had clearly suffered some kind of information sharing exercise between professions & in some cases even the Police who had turned against them on all counts.

In short, the Scottish justice system had clearly turned from an allegedly well respected system of dispute resolution, to that of a finely tuned, well oiled weapon used against anyone who disagreed with it or sought to recover from damages inflicted by it.

Source

we got so p**** off we wrote a song about it.

That is just insane. Her comments are comparable to saying that scars are an indication of a healthy body, because your body healed itself, rather than the FACT that scars are evidence of an injury.

People have been putting up with this crap for centuries. Nothing is going to change until a vast majority of the people wake up to all the scams that are being pulled on them right and left.

Doubt that is ever going to happen. The sheeple are stupid, that's why it works.

Wow thanks for that now I feel dirty . . . too much lawyer talk.

(I am a notary so I am used to pushing through "boring" technical language, )

Just more evidence that lawyers are the lowest form of scum on the planet. Why do we, as a people, put up with this stuff?

Originally posted by CaptChaos
That is just insane. Her comments are comparable to saying that scars are an indication of a healthy body, because your body healed itself, rather than the FACT that scars are evidence of an injury.

People have been putting up with this crap for centuries. Nothing is going to change until a vast majority of the people wake up to all the scams that are being pulled on them right and left.

Doubt that is ever going to happen. The sheeple are stupid, that's why it works.

Well they've known about the damage asbestos causes since about the 1940's but they didn't insist on protection for workers until the 1980's. Have you ever seen someone with asbestosis - it is tortuous and painful. How they wouldn't be trying to help these people in any way possible I do not know - especially given their knowledge when the people I've met contracted the condition. (To compensate them wouldn't be that much money in the scheme of things - I bet the legal fees are already in excess of any compensation pay-outs).

As for the lawyer la la land - its not been so bad for so long....really only since the master policy came along. (I think that was in the 1980's) Lawyers are originally touters of literacy skills...that was all they had. Not so long ago those who could read and write sat outside the court 'soliciting' for business - hence solicitors.

reply to post by MasterGemini


I'm not a lawyer - I'm a 'McKenzie Friend' - a lay assistant helping a party litigant in the courts. The grip of the master policy is so bad that even though the litigant's business could easily afford legal representation it is impossible to find any who are honest. That's not strictly true - we did have one solicitor who was doing a very good job for us but our opponents offered his wife a position with their firm. She was also a solicitor and our opponents are one of the biggest legal firms in the country. It was too good an opportunity for the woman to pass up. Our solicitor was forced to resign due to conflict of interest.