Report comment

This is a difficult professional issue for the Bar as well.

It would be simple if there were no discretion as the solicitor would be entitled as of right.

However they are not, there is a discretion to be exercised as to whether it is appropriate.

Our instructions are to invite the DJ to exercise his/her discretion and allow the 25% to be taken as a success fee, but that is clearly not in the interests of the (infant) client. So how can one make submissions on the point at all?

Taking the argument to its logical conclusion, given that a detailed assessment is envisaged in the rules, both the solicitor and the infant client need to be able to make representations about the appropriateness of the success fee.

That is clearly not an efficient way to deal with things and cannot be what was intended.

This issue is causing a lot of problems and needs to be resolved.