By Neil Rose




There has been a 37% increase in claimant solicitors issuing proceedings in low-value road traffic accident cases so as to avoid the fixed-fee payment scheme, key research has revealed.



But the study for the Civil Justice Council (CJC) concluded that overall the scheme has worked well, slashing the amount of satellite litigation over costs.



It also allayed fears voiced when the scheme began in October 2003 that claimant solicitors would do less work and undersettle to finish cases quickly.



But delegates at last week's CJC costs forum heard evidence that before fixed fees, 15.75% of cases were litigated, compared to 21.6% afterwards.



'The evidence supports strongly the hypothesis that the [scheme] has resulted in an increase in the likelihood of litigation over non-cost matters,' the research said.



Insurers and defendant lawyers such as solicitor Dominic Clayden, director of technical claims at Norwich Union, said the findings strengthened the case for post-issue fixed fees.



However, there were also suggestions that the increase was mainly down to a small group of solicitors routinely issuing to escape fixed fees.



David Marshall, managing partner of London firm Anthony Gold and part of the claimant team that struck the original deal, said the research accorded with his experience, but also showed that claimant solicitors are 'broadly doing the same amount of work at the rates that were paid in summer 2002'. That was when the research that underpinned the fee levels was done.



The fact there has been no uprating since, despite an agreement to do so, 'severely dents confidence in the fixed-costs regime', he said.



Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson echoed Mr Marshall's views. 'We need much clearer assurances about regular increases in the rates before we could contemplate an extension of the fixed recoverable costs regime to other areas of work,' he said.



CJC chief executive Robert Musgrove said he had sympathy with claimant solicitors over the fees and pledged to discuss it with the government. But he added that the issue had not been raised before.



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