I have spent enough time around the legal profession to have witnessed:

Vexatious claims issued in the Employment Tribunal (prior to the introduction of fees). Because claimant solicitors knew respondent first would pay a few grand for to get rid of the claim, rather than fight it.

Letters of claim sent on near hopeless personal injury cases, in the hope the insurer would offer a quick settlement, most probably on a 50/50 basis. If it looked like the claim was going to be contested, it would be ditched.

Costs being grossly inflated.

As for the Savile stuff, it appears there is a fund in place that pretty much anyone can claim from. There are serious concerns that there is no proper mechanism to place to test the credibility of claimants. Considering the large amount of people claiming, it is inevitable that a number are fraudulent. Which is exactly what has happened with all the Phil Shiner / Leigh Day stuff.

I hope Shiner and Leigh Day get smashed by the SRA, and that a lot of the money paid to them is recovered by the public purse.

There is a world of difference between such things occasionally happening, and your seeming view that it's nothing else but fraudulent applications. However your claim is plainly wrong since if this was really true, then why would these bent lawyers not simply sub the fees temporarily, get their payout and trebles all round as normal? It would just be a slightly different business model, adding some funding for fees wouldn't it?


Again, this can hardly be taken seriously. Whilst occasionally odd lawyers may waste their time and money flying hopeless kites, the plain fact is that no insurer is going to offer a quick settlement unless they think the chances of losing and paying more make it worth while. So plainly not a "near hopeless" case.

If there were lots of such "near hopeless" letters then there would be an almost identical number of near hopeless lawyers with near hopeless overdrafts, as there is a considerable cost involved just to reach the stage of even putting in a claim.


Now you are just being stupid. Anyone who knows about the law, knows that solicitors' costs are - by a huge margin - THE most closely scrutinised of any job in the world. If there is a dispute, then a bill has to be filed, listing if necessary every letter written, every telephone call made, and accounting for every minute of time spent. Each of which can be and are analysed and assessed in detail at lengthy assessments. You also know the harsh penalties if a bill of costs is "grossly inflated" and you also know the cash penalties that canand do follow, regardless of the amount claimed, if a reasonable offer on costs turns out to have been wrongly refused. You also know that insurance companies invariably employ specialist lawyers whose sole skill and job is in relation to attacking each and every single element of solicitors bills. So if there are any costs being "grossly inflated" on occasion, it is irrelevant, what would be a problem is if such "grossly inflated" costs were actually being paid. You talk as if paying insurers were some sort of helpless ingenues that stump up, baffled at the enormity of the sums. You could not be more wrong.


Sadly for your argument though, these "serious concerns" were considered and dismissed by the Court of Appeal, no less, which was satisfied, despite you continuing to present the losing argument, that there were sufficient checks and balances in place. You are, of course, free to disagree with the Court of Appeal judges but I'll take their view over yours if that's OK.


You seem to conflate a fraudulent claimant with fraudulent lawyers. What if the fraudulent claimant deceived the lawyers, though?


If they turn out to have been complicit, or failed in their duties, then at least we can agree on that, but with the caveat that so far nothing has yet been proved against them, so far as I know.

Because no law firm wants to pay hundreds (or thousands) of pounds in upfront fees, to fund a claim that will probably get struck out or ultimately defeated. Anyone would issue anything when there was no fees, and thus no risk to do so, since costs are almost never awarded in the ET. The idea was based around the fact that the Respondent would pay a few grand for the Claimant to go away, rather than thousands of pounds in legal fees to fight the claim. Back in 2012 I saw some research that the average cost in legal fees for responding to an ET claim was £8,500. If you can offer the Claimant £3,000 to go away, it made good business sense.



I have personally seen hopeless cases settled on a 50/50 basis. Also, there are (or were) entire business models based on paralegals writing speculative letters of claim on complete and utter rubbish cases, with the intent being the claim would be ditched should the insurer deny liability.



Agreed. And there are. Many small law firms run 'in the red'. Also, there is no shortage of law firms going out of business.



Your argument is self-defeating. The fact there is so much scrutiny of solicitors' bills, and an entire industry built around arguing over costs, reflects the concerns about grossly inflated legal bills. This is also another reason that the Government has introduced fixed-fees for many types of cases.

You still don't get it. A settled claim is what everyone but you calls a "WIN". By definition it was not therefore "hopeless".


Indeed and it is accelerating, kind of torpedoes the argument that fat cat lawyers are making easy millions doesn't it?


No it doesn't. You either are being deliberately obtuse, or else you know zero about the history of legal csts and the development of the taxation system (now assessment). Also, the system has been in place for so long and become so established largely because paying parties, usually insurers, seized on every chance to attack costs and delay payment. It does not reflect anything of the sort. It reflects that historically it has been difficult for parties to reach agreement as to costs. The fact that in the majority of cases they did eventually reach agreement and the fact that the majority of taxations were settled in favour of the receivinbg party debunks your argument.
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Who agrees the hourly rate? is it a fixed amount or can a firm charge what they like an hour? I would imagine the hourly rate of a partner at Clifford Chase or DLA will be somewhat higher than for Whittaker Firth in Bradford for the same work?

The client agrees the hourly rate. It most often comes into question when it comes to someone else paying (though clients have the same right to ask a court to asses any solicitors bill anyway). The Court Service publishes guideline rates for different grades of lawyers, and for different areas of the country, they are only guidelines but you'd do very well to get higher than guideline rates paid.

So the top firms will be subsidising cases as there is no way the fees they charge for non court stuff i.e. M&A work would be stomached by the courts? So DLA have charge less for work in Yorkshire than for the exact same work in London?