Many people are nervous about contacting lawyers for fear of a bill! We try to make using the law affordable. Below we describe general funding issues, and provide links on what is costs protection, whether insurance is available against legal costs, and how clients can cut down on costs by organising their cases well.

People think about “telephone number” costs liabilities that they worry may arise to opponents, and indeed what their own legal advisers will charge. Like other professionals, we charge for our time, but we understand that these costs need to be managed. Clients are often lay people without access to substantial resources or at least resources that they can be expected to commit in the public interest. We can help keep costs predictable and achievable in various ways.

Costs arrangements

Legal costs rules are complicated. The starting point to understand is that time needs to be recorded carefully to enable fees to be understood and to seek recovery from opponents if a case is successful. We can agree to charge for time spent, or a fixed fee for different stages of the work (subject to a written agreement dealing with consequences of success and ability to recover from opponents). Similarly, or in combination, we can work at reduced rates. In exceptional public interest cases, we may be prepared to work on a complete no-win, no-fee agreement. A so-called “conditional fee” is in effect where you bill your client less than ordinary charges if the case is not successful.

How we charge

Our normal charge-out rates are set out in our terms of business, broadly speaking varying with level of experience, available on request.  As is normal practice, we record time on a six-minute (= one tenth of an hour) basis. Our case management and accounts system enables us to provide a fully itemised breakdown of all time spent, so the level of fees charged is entirely transparent. VAT is chargeable on practically everything, except court fees.

As part of our instruction, we may also incur costs (“disbursements”) such as barristers’ fees, experts’ fees, court fees and for general expenses eg. travel and printing. In relation to these fees:

  • Barristers’ costs – Barristers tend to charge more on an item-by-item basis, although this will, of course, in fact tend to reflect time spent. However, one can agree these fees in advance, so the solicitor (and client) knows where everyone stands.
  • Court fees – For judicial review work in the High Court fees are modest and relatively insignificant in the context of costs generally. (Note – fees for other types of action, including statutory appeals and e.g. nuisance cases, are higher).

We normally ask for a deposit of funds on account of costs. That is partly because we are responsible for paying for disbursements. We also render invoices periodically for our fees and disbursements as may be agreed – for example, monthly, quarterly, or after milestones have passed.

Costs exposure and recovery

The normal rule in civil litigation is that the loser pays the winner’s costs, although due to complex rules on how costs are assessed there will almost always be some shortfall in recovery – we normally suggest expectation of recovery around 70-80%.

However, in environmental public law cases these rules have been substantially modified to enable individuals and community groups or small organisations to bring cases without prohibitively expensive risk; but these rules can also limit the amount that a claimant can recover from the other side if successful. It is also possible to obtain protection from adverse costs in nuisance, depending on via which regime a claim is made. Please refer to the costs protection and insurance pages for more information about protection from costs in environmental cases.

Costs can also be kept down in the way you organise your case and work with us. See the Organising your case page for tips.

Funding

Own-side costs can be funded in different ways, or a combination of them. A residents’ group or others concerned about some relatively local and defined issue are often well capable of raising substantial funds from individual contributions, especially where there are a few individuals prepared to take a generous lead. From a wider community, crowdfunding is useful. A site which specialises in crowdfunding legal cases is www.crowdjustice.com.

Given our ethos that litigation should be affordable, we are prepared to be flexible about fees. However, we usually find that a community can afford at least something substantial: if they cannot or will not, there may not be a good sense of commitment to the issue at hand.

Conditional Fee Agreements

Conditional fee agreements (CFAs) are agreements between a client and lawyer which mean that you pay us less if you lose a case, but a full fee if you win.

In very rare cases, we may be prepared to take a case on a 100% CFA basis (i.e. “no-win, no-fee”) but we almost always prefer the client to take at least part of the risk – for example, paying half normal fees in any event but full fees (and depending on circumstances a success fee on the balance at risk) if you win.

CFAs are a similar concept to “contingency fees” used in other jurisdictions. Those however involve taking a slice of the damages if one is successful. They are not presently used in the UK although a similar model, “Damages Based Agreements” are now permitted.  However, they would not normally apply in public law/judicial review work because damages are not usually recovered in such cases.

If you win in litigation, you can usually recover most of your costs from the other side. However, certain costs cannot be recovered such as success fees and  the cost of insurance you may have taken out to cover the costs in the event of losing (“After The Event” or ATE insurance).

Counsel may agree also to work on a conditional basis but experts cannot do so. Usually we expect the client to pay for disbursements such as expert’s fees, court fees, printing, etc., but in special circumstances this can be discussed. Overall, when considering whether to enter a CFA, one has to strike a balance between what makes sense for us and the client, what the client can afford, and the need for the client to have a stake in the matter.