I was interested to see from your piece last week, ‘Urgent action’ demanded on CFA ‘scandal’ (see news), that Steven Heffer had written to the justice secretary Kenneth Clarke QC on behalf of Lawyers for Media Standards to voice its concerns about the proposal to reduce the maximum success fee chargeable under CFAs [conditional fee agreements] in defamation proceedings.

In April, Mr Heffer wrote an article for the Gazette in which he expressed deep concern about how ‘proposed reforms were being considered within an environment where the reality of this area of law plays no part’ (see comment).

What none of the claimant solicitors who use CFAs in defamation proceedings have been willing to do, and this includes Mr Heffer and Carter-Ruck, is provide what Mr Heffer would call ‘the reality’ by disclosing accurate figures for the number of CFAs they have won and lost. Presumably, this is because those figures would show, as indeed is the case, that the vast majority of media CFA cases are won by claimants. For example, the Media Lawyers Association believes Carter-Ruck has won over 90% of CFA cases, thereby demonstrating that the proposal to reduce the maximum success fee to 10% as an interim measure was and remains entirely appropriate.

Marcus Partington, Chair, Media Lawyers Association