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As Anon@09.04 says, the CPR provides a mechanism for assessment of these fees which proceeds on the basis that the solicitors is entitled to charge the litigation friend, and the litigation friend is entitled to an indemnity from the damages. Whether a DDJ thinks "it's fair" or not, is surely besides the point? And since when has the law been, "we decide what to do in the Monday morning, DJ coffee meeting, and what we decide is right until the Court of Appeal says otherwise?"

The rules are clear and it is simply not open to a D/DJ to delete CPR 46.4 and CPR 21.12 because they think the solicitors earn enough anyway.

Furthermore in a low value car accident claim, subject to portal fixed fees, there is no link between the fixed fee payable and the work to be done. It is being assumed that the fixed fee payable has been set at a level appropriate to the costs of running the case. That is not correct. The fixed fees are simply arbitrary amounts decided upon, that have no bearing on anything. They are like the other fixed fees in CPR Part 45. Nobody is surely going to suggest, for example, that it would only be fair to charge £2.25 for issuing a warrant to bailiffs to enforce a debt, but that is the fee allowed by 45.8.