Funding and costs

Funding

The usual mechanisms for funding a clinical negligence claim are:

1. •

   conditional fee agreement

2. •

   before the event (BTE) insurance

3. •

   damages-based agreement

4. •

   legal aid/public funding

Outside these criteria, ‘exceptional case’ funding may be available under section 10(2) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO 2012). Decisions are made by the Legal Aid Authority, applying the Lord Chancellor’s Exceptional Funding Guidance (Non-Inquests).

See further Practice Note: Clinical negligence claims—funding and costs.

Conditional fee agreements

The now-traditional ‘no win, no fee’ arrangement is subject to amended rules which came into effect on 1 April 2013. Under a conditional fee agreement (CFA), the solicitor is not paid if the case is lost. In the event of success, they receive as payment their base fees plus a success fee calculated at a proportion of those base fees. Base costs are generally sought to be recovered from the opponent while the success fee is payable by the client. The rules on CFAs in clinical negligence claims are, with one exception, broadly the same as apply in personal injury claims.