DRIVING HARD BARGAINLaw Society President David McIntosh says he understands the concerns about fixed costs regimes (see [2001] Gazette, 14 December, 16), so I know that he will have the answer to what troubles me most about the mantra that costs must be 'proportionate'.If costs are proportionate to damages, as so many people keep saying, where does that leave fairness? Consider two people forced to give up their jobs as a result of occupational asthma.

One is a relatively well-paid 30-year-old, the other a 55-year-old cleaner.General damages may well be the same, but their special damages, especially loss of earnings, will be radically different.Do 'proportionate' costs mean that their lawyers are allowed to spend more money fighting the cases of rich, young men than poor, old women?I am often told that spending unlimited sums on litigation is tantamount to demanding a Rolls-Royce service, and that no litigation system can afford that.

It is a moot point, but all I am in fact asking for is the same service for all victims, not Rolls- Royces for some and Skodas for others.Trade unions have lots of members in both categories and we run more than 50,000 cases a year.

We would prefer to treat them equally.

Discussions with us and our law firms about the possibility of fixed costs will not get off the ground unless the proponents of proportionality at least come clean about whether they are in fact arguing that there should be one law for the rich and another for the poor.Owen Tudor, TUC senior policy officer, London