Insurance lawyers call for contingency and fixed fees to resolve PI funding mess

Foil conference: claimant lawyers argue that conditional fees are best way forward for clients

Contingency fees for personal injury cases could soon be drafted in whether the profession likes it or not to combat the 'mess' in the funding system, Law Society President David McIntosh warned last week.Delivering the keynote address at the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) annual conference, Mr McIntosh told delegates that claimants involved in complex and expensive matters are having their cases turned down by insurance companies, and slated the government for not putting more thought into funding arrangements after it did away with legal aid for personal injury cases.Mr McIntosh - a defendant insurance lawyer himself - said: 'Now [contingency fees] are a real possibility.

I believe they will happen because of the funding and costs mess, which as it stands is an impediment to access to justice and which is turning defendants and their insurers into the funders of the cases they have to defend.'The new FOIL president, Tim Wallis of north-east firm Crutes, who took over from Beachcroft Wansbroughs' Andrew Parker, echoed Mr McIntosh's criticisms and compared the current funding system to London's Millennium Bridge because 'it is new, it is state of the art and it doesn't work'.Mr Wallis also called for a fixed-fee system to be set up in personal injury cases, saying that similar schemes in Scotland and Northern Ireland showed it increases certainty and promotes efficiency.However, Patrick Allen, vice-president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), disputed the idea that fixed and contingency fees are the way forward.

He argued that they would not give claimants sufficient resources to fight cases, and would encourage defendants to wait 'until they are outside the court door' to settle.

'There is no real support for them, and we do not want to see them undermine the current conditional fee arrangement (CFA) funding scheme, which is a suitable funding scheme and government-approved policy,' Mr Allen added.Meanwhile, delegates united in criticising the indemnity principle, saying it has complicated CFAs so much that clients do not understand them.

Mr McIntosh branded it 'a hindrance to competitive modern business practice' and called on FOIL and APIL to work together on this and other funding matters.'If the regular parties can agree on an equitable way forward, surely the rulemakers will adopt it,' he urged.

Paula Rohan