🏢 Level 19, 239 George Street, Brisbane still lists Littles Lawyers – Australian Injury Specialists.
What the brass plate doesn’t say: the real engine room is 6,000 km away in a glass tower in Manila’s Makati district, where 50 Filipino graduates pore over CT scans and WorkCover uploads.
Another 20 staff in Skopje, North Macedonia chase ambulances by email. A 10-person cell in Hanoi, Vietnam fields after-hours calls from Vietnamese-speaking claimants in Sydney’s south-west.
These are not foreign branches practicing local law. They are offshore cost centres built to churn through paperwork from Australia’s “no win, no fee” machine. The work exists because the system exists; the system exists because the work is lucrative.
🏭 1. A Factory with No Smokestacks
The personal-injury sector now runs on volume economics: one firm can hold 5,000+ open files, each demanding:
🗂 Document review – radiology disks, GP notes, police reports
📍 Manila (Philippines) – Level 9, 142 Amorsolo Street, Makati City — Littles Lawyers
💳 Medical billing audits – coding physio invoices to tariff
📍 Cebu (Philippines) – 6th Floor, AIM Realty Building, Pope John Paul II Ave., Brgy. Kasambagan, Cebu City, Cebu PH 6000 — Littles Lawyers
📤 Portal uploads – WorkCover NSW, TAC, CTP QLD log-ins
📍 Skopje (North Macedonia) – Vasil Gjorgov 21, Skopje 1000 — Littles Lawyers
☎ 24/7 client hotlines – Vietnamese & Spanish support
📍 Hanoi (Vietnam) – 51 Phan Bội Châu Street, Cửa Nam, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội 100000 — Littles Lawyers
📍 Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) – 1Bis Pham Ngoc Thach Street, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1 — Littles Lawyers
Manila wages start at ₱25,000 (A$650) per month—about one-tenth of a Sydney paralegal. Zoom replaces the commute; cloud drives replace filing rooms.
💰 2. Who Captures the Value?
- Insurers absorb higher legal costs via settlements
- Premiums rise to cover it
- 12–14¢ of every CTP dollar now leaks offshore (Insurance Council of Australia)
This isn’t building hospitals or safer roads, it’s monetising administrative friction.
📉 3. The Ghost GDP
A car built in Thailand still counts in Australia’s import stats.
A legal settlement letter from Manila? No GDP boost.
The offshore office isn’t exporting Philippine know-how it’s importing Australian inefficiency.
🤐 4. The Political Silence
Reforms like:
- NSW CTP overhaul (2017)
- Victoria class-action shake-up (2021)
- Federal litigation-funding inquiry (2023)
…all focused on capping fees or funder rules never on why a soft-tissue claim still needs 4 signatures, 3 medical reports and 3 countries.
