Kenneth Clarke has said that proposed changes to the civil justice system, which are set to be announced, will seek to reverse the trend of recent years which has seen Britain become a “legalistic and litigious” society.
The Justice Secretary in particular has “no win no fee” legal arrangements in his sights, saying that conditional fee agreements, as they are known, are becoming a burden for businesses and public bodies including the NHS. He says that a new system will be brought in which will force lawyers to accept a 25% proportion of the damages that they win for their client rather than them receiving a potentially lucrative “success fee” which happens under the current rules.
Mr Clarke will also raise the maximum damages that can be awarded in small-claims courts, to £15,000 from £5,000 and hopes that the action taken will persuade more people to take up mediation as a way of settling claims before they come to court. The Justice Secretary, who will announce the changes to the House of Commons, said that the previous Labour government had introduced reforms which had made “no win no fee” more attractive for lawyers but the system had become too unfair for defendants who found that they often could not afford to defend themselves from such lawsuits.
Mr Clarke said: “Businesses find it very expensive and particularly the NHS, which pays out a fortune in lawyers’ fees every year because of the way it’s been changed. We are going back to the way in which it started in the 1990s.”
However, the proposals have been criticised by Muiris Lyons, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, who said that the changes would mean that fewer people had access to justice. He said that personal injury lawyers had managed to make “no win no fee” work and provide access to justice for anybody who is injured.
