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I am at a loss to understand why ideas like this are seen primarily as an attack on the profession when in fact they are an attack on the profession's clients. These fixed fees are in fact fixed inter-partes costs - what the client pays his/her own solicitor is a matter of contract, whereas what the winner gets from the loser will be a matter of the fixed amount. Clients are going to have to accept the risk that they will be paying some of their damages to their own solicitor if they win. Back in the old days most litigation clients faced the prospect of a 'solicitor and own client' bill even if they won and the other side were ordered to pay their costs. This is not new.
It might be interesting to consider whether it would be possible/proper for the solicitor to enter into an agreement with the client that, if the fixed costs ordered in favour of the client exceed the costs actually incurred, the client can keep the excess. The client is, after all taking the risk that the fixed amount will be too little.
Perhaps that isn't what LJ Jackson had in mind but hey, since most of the reforms since 1998 have produced unintended and often ludicrous consequences, why not give it a whirl?

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