Solicitors who cease acting for a client where the case has no chance of success on points of law are entitled to be paid for the work done up to that point, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

The Court of Appeal (pictured), in Buxton v Mills-Owen, heard that a party in a planning case, Mr Mills-Owen, had instructed his solicitors to put untenable arguments to the court. Solicitors are officers of the court and must put forward arguable valid points of law only; knowingly doing otherwise would be a breach of the Code of Conduct.

The solicitors in this case were therefore entitled to cease acting for the client and, the court ruled, be paid for the work to date.

Lord Justice Dyson, in his summing up, said ‘…the common law rule that a solicitor is entitled to be paid for all the work he has done prior to termination if he terminates for good reason has been part of our law for almost 200 years. It follows that the appellants are entitled to be paid their profit costs and disbursements for the work done prior to the termination’.

The ruling overturned the judgment of Mr Justice Mackay in the High Court.

Law Society president Robert Heslett said the Society had intervened in the case to provide ‘clarification’ for solicitors faced with the ‘difficult scenario’ of being instructed to make untenable arguments to court: ‘Like any business, solicitors should be paid for the services they provide and be confident in refusing to make arguments that they do not think they can professionally articulate or which would breach their professional duties.

‘The Law Society felt it was essential for any uncertainty around this issue to be cleared up, to make it easier for solicitors to deal with situations where clients insist that unarguable points should be put.’