Governments should introduce tariffs for lawyers’ fees if they want to deliver wider access to justice, according to an Oxford University study of litigation funding systems across Europe published today.

The research into the funding and costs of litigation in 35 countries, published by the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, found that ‘historical objections’ to third party funding of litigation have ‘crumbled’ across Europe, due to the ‘perceived need to enable continued access to justice’.

The study found that where lawyers’ fess are not regulated bv tariffs, ‘the costs of litigation are high in relation to the value of the case’, with England and Wales, Ireland and Denmark providing ‘particularly striking examples’.

In England and Wales, the paper said case studies show that the costs of road traffic, medical negligence, large commercial dispute and intellectual property injunction cases are particularly high. However, it found costs to be comparative low in its small claim, divorce, employment, debt and consumer injunction case studies.

The paper concludes: ‘If governments wish to deliver wider access to justice in those cases where proportionate cost is particularly important, they should introduce tariffs for lawyers’ fees, introduce efficient case management techniques in the civil courts, and devise alternative pathways for dispute resolution that deliver cheaper or more efficient solutions.

‘This is not to say that justice will always come cheap. There will always be cases in which access to factual and/or expert evidence is viewed as important, and this necessarily involves a certain level of expenditure.’