Analyse the advantages and disadvantages of conditional fee arrangements for legal aid.
Conditional fee arrangement (CFA) is between a client and a solicitor that is drawn up when the client wishes to make a claim. It is an agreement whereby a lawyer and a client agree to share the risk of the litigation by coming to a financial arrangement on the fees payable based on the outcome of the litigation. They arrangements were first allowed by section 58 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 in personal injury, insolvency and human rights cases. However, after the introduction of Access to Justice Act 1999, the use of conditional fees was extended to all civil cases except family cases.
CFA provides access to justice without putting the financial burden on the government and its taxpayers. This way, the people have been able to claim their losses through CFA rather then going through the grueling process of obtaining legal aid. The main theme of the CFA is that it creates a “no win, no fee” [1] situation. It is agreed from the very beginning that if the solicitor does not win the case, the client is not obliged to pay anything to the solicitor. It is the reason why it is called “conditional fee” as the fee is subject to the result of the litigation.
CFA have its fair share advantages as it was introduced to counter the inability left by the previous legal aid system. Firstly, it represents a new way to access to justice for those who could not afford to fund their cases privately and were ineligible under the legal aid under the Access to Justice Act 1999. From 2000- 2005 the number alone, the number of personal injury cases saw a jump in 1 million consumers seeking redress through CFA.[2] The Access to Justice Act 1999 has also taken away personal injury cases from state funding so the rise of litigation under the CFA is direct result of it.
Secondly, if a claim is successful under CFA, normal costs are payable to the solicitor as well the percentage from...