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The cost of bringing litigation in England and Wales is under greater scrutiny than ever before after the Master of the Rolls Sir Anthony Clarke appointed Lord Justice Rupert Jackson to conduct a year-long review into legal costs.
With Jackson LJ, who has already visited the Civil Justic Council's (CJC) costs forum to set out his review timetable, preparing to travel around the country to meet those involved in the process, the review will be no small task. But according to CJC chief executive Robert Musgrove, a review at this point was inevitable.
"It's natural timing now that the Woolf reforms are 10 years old," he says.
There are concerns that Jackson LJ will hear horror stories of a costs war when he meets with the defendant lobby. Consideration will be given to abolishing the practice of costs-shifting altogether in favour of a US-style contingency fees model.
Claimant lawyers are expected to counter-argue that, while there are problems with the current claimant system, this stems mainly from defendant lawyers using technical points of law to dispute costs orders.
"The possibility of abolishing the costs-shifting rules is becoming a real option," says one CJC insider. "I can't believe that someone who's considered all the arguments will change the rules. It will deprive middle England of being able to bring a claim and give defendants the option of outspending the opposition."
The CJC is about to publish an academic study into the contingency fees model. There is much scaremongering about the use of fees, which some suggest would...