The worst is yet to come for the legal profession, warns Patrick Allen
On 1 April 2013 the existing rules for conditional fee agreements (CFAs) and personal injury (PI) work were scrapped. Success fees and after the event (ATE) premiums are no longer recoverable from the losing party. In a raft of changes, a new rule on proportionality, fixed costs, budgeting, and damage based agreements have been introduced.
In the weeks before 1 April, there was a frenzy of activity in solicitors’ firms, chambers and ATE offices, first to ensure that existing cases could take advantage of the old rules before the cut off and second to devise new terms in readiness for 2 April.
One ATE insurer sold £30m of policies in March 2013 alone, compared to normal annual turnover of £1m.
The Law Society at the last minute produced a new model CFA for PI cases. Thankfully, the regulations regarding new CFAs are not unduly prescriptive. The main point is that it must include a reference to the new capped
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