Court ruling gives costs protection to solicitors over funding disbursements

Solicitors taking ‘no-win, no-fee’ cases against public bodies and others are not liable for costs if a case fails in which they have agreed to help clients by funding the cost of disbursements.

That ruling has come from the Court of Appeal following the Law Society's intervention in the case of Germany v Flatman.

Chancery Lane said the ruling had established that solicitors who fund disbursement costs, such as medical reports in a personal injury claim, do not become liable for costs if the case fails.

It said that if solicitors did not agree to cover these costs, clients might well be unable to take action.

The original High Court ruling threatened such arrangements, the society said, just as money for civil litigation costs was being cut by the Government so reducing access to justice.

Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff said: “The vast majority of the population cannot get legal aid to bring these types of claims, so conditional fee arrangements are one of the few ways that ordinary citizens, who fall victim to serious errors, can seek justice before the courts.

"These type of fee arrangements assist access to justice for litigants who cannot afford to bring the litigation themselves, often in the field of housing law, personal injury and trade union cases and are particularly important in a climate where so many cuts have been made to public funding."

She said solicitors would offer to fund disbursements “only where they viewed the claim as being likely to succeed”.

Scott-Moncrieff added: “The significance of the case is that it enables solicitors to address problems that their clients face in funding meritorious claims.”