Why the forums must continue

It is simplistic to cast insurers and their lawyers as the baddies working to frustrate brave claimant lawyers

It seems safe to say that the Civil Justice Council's third costs forum will not be the last.

The council's main achievement so far has been the fixed fees scheme for road traffic cases that settle pre-issue.

Unless it fails dismally, the pressure will be on to extend it to post-issue, and to employer's liability cases and beyond.

Then this autumn there is an all-party mediation on the level of success fees, while liability insurers are threatening to challenge hourly rates allowed by county courts.

This forum, in simplifying the conditional fee agreement regime, agreed a blueprint the government will struggle to ignore.

The issue has been driven in part by the raft of highly technical challenges brought by insurers.

Some opportunistic insurers have mounted challenges to avoid paying, but it is simplistic to cast them and their lawyers as the baddies working to frustrate brave claimant lawyers.

However, it is clear that insurers intend to keep forcing issues.

This may seem to claimant lawyers as close to blackmail, but then insurers have rights too.

Fighting every issue through the courts cannot work - so the Civil Justice Council and its forums must keep stepping in.