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17 March 2023 / Richard Spector
Issue: 8017 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Costs , Legal services
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The joy of damages-based agreements

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Highs, lows, successes & appreciative clients—Richard Spector shares his personal experience of damages-based agreements
  • Presents a solicitor’s personal experience of running damages-based agreement cases.
  • A low experience was where satellite litigation reduced the fee despite the case succeeding.
  • Outcomes are mainly positive, with good returns especially where cases settle early, and strengthens bonds between solicitor and client.

I have always thought of myself as one of the few solicitors who is a leading proponent of damages-based agreements (DBAs). DBAs are a form of fee agreement whereby the solicitor acts on a no-win no-fee basis and is entitled to a percentage of any damages recovered by the client.

DBAs were introduced by the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013, SI 2013/609, and have not proven overly popular among solicitors so far. Solicitors have been reluctant to take on the additional risk of a DBA where, if they lose, they get nothing at all and, if they win, their fees depend on the amount of damages recovered. Damages are always strongly

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Sponsored by
Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Arc Pensions Law—Matthew Swynnerton

Chair of the Association of Pension Lawyers joins as partner

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Ampa Group—Kamal Chauhan

Group names Shakespeare Martineau partner head of Sheffield office

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Blake Morgan—four promotions

Four legal directors promoted to partner across UK offices

NEWS
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The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

NLJ this week: Civil procedure gets a spring overhaul
Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
NLJ this week: Why GP complaints are going nowhere
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
NLJ this week: Prenups meet a jurisdictional brick wall
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
NLJ this week: Has Rylands v Fletcher come back from the dead?
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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