Individuals should be compensated in full for the wrongdoing or negligence of others, the Law Society said this week as it submitted its response to the government’s consultation on civil litigation costs.

The Society said that conditional fee agreements (CFAs) have provided ‘important access to justice for many people in middle England’, but acknowledged that the costs involved in bringing a civil claim can be too high.

Pro-claimant groups lambasted the government’s proposals, based on recommendations made by Lord Justice Jackson (pictured), which they said would reduce access to justice and increase costs. Pro-defendant groups asserted that costs would be reduced, and called for the proposals to be implemented in full.

The government has largely taken on Jackson’s key recommendations to abolish the recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance, and to instead allow contingency fee agreements in which a proportion of a claimant’s damages would be used to pay their legal fees. It has not yet decided whether to abolish referral fees.

Law Society president Linda Lee said: ‘Claimants must be free to bring cases to court, but they should be able to recover all of their damages if they win.’

The Society said that the main driver of high civil litigation costs are court processes, which can and should be streamlined. It said that it is not opposed to fixed costs ‘in appropriate cases at appropriate levels’, and while it shares Jackson’s concerns about referral fees, banning them would not necessarily reduce costs.

The Law Society’s council was due to discuss Chancery Lane’s response to the consultation as the Gazette went to press.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers said that restricting CFAs while simultaneously cutting legal aid would create a ‘perfect storm’ for access to justice. For clinical negligence claims, APIL recommended that a streamlined process for straightforward claims should be developed, and staged success fees introduced.

APIL president Muiris Lyons said: ‘How can it be fair and just for someone who is suffering because of another person’s negligence to have to pay towards putting things right?’

The Consumer Justice Alliance, a pressure group comprising victims’ charities, lawyers and insurers, recommended reducing costs by forcing defendants to pay tax and national insurance on loss of earnings claims; making statutory sick pay recoverable from claims; and extending the recovery of the NHS charges scheme.

Tim Oliver, president of the Forum of Insurance Lawyers, said: ‘Even without success fees, the hourly rate of the claimant solicitor can be up to 100% more than that of the defendant solicitor working on the other side. The reforms do not threaten access to justice.’