Education CFA revolt

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has postponed plans to make education practitioners run damages claims on conditional fee agreements (CFAs) in the face of widespread opposition from the profession, it has emerged.

An LSC consultation on the plans closed last month.

The proposals would have meant that solicitors could get funding for investigating the likely success of the case but would have to continue on a CFA backed by insurance if the prospects were better than 50%.

If insurance was unavailable, funding would only cover disbursements, with the CFA covering profit costs and counsel's fees (see [2003] Gazette, 3 July, 4).

An LSC spokesman said: 'In light of the responses to this consultation, we have decided not to implement the proposed guidance changes at this stage, but will consult further on the future funding of education cases in the autumn.'

Jack Rabinowicz, partner at London firm Teacher Stern Selby and chairman of the Education Law Association, said a moratorium on the funding changes would give everyone more time to decide how they could work in practice.

But he added that he believed the government and LSC had adopted an overall policy of clamping down on funding financial claims, such as those arising in clinical negligence, as well as in education.

'This is creeping privatisation,' he argued.

The LSC spokesman said it was planning to consult later in the year on how the funding code could be adapted, for example, to reflect the chief medical officer's report on clinical negligence claims, but denied it was targeting certain areas.

Paula Rohan