Sibthorpe & Morris v LB Southwark [2011] EWCA Civ 25 Champerty and maintenance are two common law doctrines relating to the funding of civil claims. They were, at one time criminal offences, but now survive only as a matter of public policy. Briefly,...
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With thanks to John Bolch at Family Lore.
Social Welfare Law contracts – update
The LAG news blog is reporting that while Family contracts resulted in 'carnage' with an estimated 1300 out of 2400 firms being awarded contracts - about 54%, in Social Welfare Law the LSC is saying that it believes 'around 70%' of existing providers will be...
Legal Aid contract round – In the thick of it
The results of the Social Welfare Law and combined Housing/Family contract bids are slowly coming through. I am mindful that as I write this, firms/organisations in specific areas have not yet been informed whether they have a contract and if so for how many...
Access to Justice
An anecdotal rant, for which forgive me. Sometimes one needs to vent, but this is hardly an unusual situation. It is 'just' an example of the viciousness of the public funding boundaries. I've combined a few instances in what follows, and changed details for...
Jackson: the waiting begins
'What!' I hear you say, 'wasn't the final Jackson report on costs released on 14 January?' Why yes it was. All 584 pages of it. But amid the headlines about scrapping CFA success fees and recoverable ATE insurance premiums, introducing contingency fees, and...
Retrospective CFAs on appeal
Birmingham City Council v Forde [2009] EWHC 12 (QB) was the High Court hearing of Birmingham's appeal from the High Court (Costs) case we reported on in August last year. In short, the appeal was dismissed, and the judgment of the Costs Judge upheld, but in...
Views and news from Hlpa meeting
The Hlpa meeting tonight (17/9/08) was a particularly interesting one, on the topic of disrepair. Talks were from Mel Cairns, Andrew Brookes of Anthony Gold and Marina Sergides of Garden Court. Among the end of meeting news items were: The current intent is...
Retrospective CFAs
Forde v Birmingham City Council [2008] EWHC 90105 (Costs) In brief, where a firm had asked a client to sign a second CFA for a disrepair claim, at a time when it appeared that the first CFA might be found unenforceable, and the second CFA provided for a...
The value of disinterest
That's disinterestedness, not uninterestedness, should anybody who went to school after about 1990 be reading this. Does nobody really read Kant any more? But, in a rather dismal demonstration of the trope of irony, this is likely to be an outright rant on...
LSC Judicial Review Mk 2
The Law Society is (just about) to file the second Judicial Review application of the Civil legal aid Unified Contract, this time arguing that, following the Court of Appeal judgment in the first JR, the LSC has to address the illegality of the current fixed...
Third party Funding, after your cash?
Sorry for another Times story reference, but I felt myself slipping into bewilderment with this story. Third party financing for bringing a case, OK. But it is then denied that there is any resemblance to encouraging personal litigation because: Helping one...