Civil Litigation Costs – Lord Justice Jackson’s Preliminary Report

A decade on from Lord Woolf's ground-breaking reforms implemented by the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, there is no escaping the harsh fact that civil litigation is more expensive than ever.

Claimants are deterred from pursuing disputes by the high costs involved. Both they and defendants face a potentially huge financial exposure under our "loser pays" system.

This problem has been compounded, following the retraction of Legal Aid in recent years, by the introduction of alternative means of funding litigation. In particular, Conditional Fee Agreements ("CFAs") and After the Event ("ATE") insurance have spawned a "costs war" of their own over the recoverability of CFA success fees and ATE premiums from the losing party.