Law Weblog

Fixed recoverable fees for accidents at work; “No win no fee” arrangements.

Fixed recoverable success fees for road traffic accident claims were introduced on 1 June 2004. Further stability, certainty and transparency will be brought to conditional fee agreements on 1 October. Fixed success fees are extended to the estimated 48,000 annual claims brought for accidents at work.

New Civil Procedure Rules will fix the success fee paid by a defendant’s insurer to the claimant’s solicitor or barrister where they are funded by a conditional fee agreement. For example, insurers will pay solicitors their normal costs plus a success fee of 25 per cent of these costs if they win cases that settle prior to court and a 100 per cent success fee for the riskier cases that go to trial. The new rules implement an agreement facilitated by the Civil Justice Council and DCA between representatives of the legal professions and the liability insurance industry designed to make recoverable legal costs more predictable, to speed up the settlement of cases and to reduce claims costs.