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This is utterly disgraceful.

At a time when the 'small' claims limit increases from £500 to £1,000, to £10,000 in what seems a blink of an eyelid, court fees rocket.

...and not only issue fees - application fees are now charged, with astronomical increases across the board to include new charges such as allocation fees, listing questionnaires, hearing fees... and these aren't cheap either - a modest listing and hearing fee is now £1,200. This used to be free.

So, with the 'Access to Justice' we now see clients expecting their solicitors to bear not only all of their costs in the event of a loss, but the ATE premiums which can be ridiculously high, court fees and other disbursements are now expected to be bank rolled by solicitors firms? On a CFA, a client now winces because they lose 25% in success fees on a PI action, and there's not just reduced legal aid, but absolutely no legal aid?

What on earth is going on? Never has there been a worse time to consider taking an action.

...and then, apart from justice, we have the punitive adminstration approach of Mitchell. Miss something by minutes and you're done for. Forget justice and the right to a fair trial - this is justice by Outlook diary fail.

....then we have phenomenal rises in PII, and massively increased regulation by the SRA - apparently it's very important to our clients to know our sexuality and ethnic make up.

This absolutely cannot carry on. The criminal sector are putting up a superb fight, is there no organisation that is standing up for the rights of civil clients and practitioners? If there isn't, it's high time there should be - sadly the Law Society are too generic to hone in on this particular practice area.

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