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 (DBA)

4. •

   legal aid/public funding

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. The exception is the ability to partially recover an after the event (ATE) insurance premium from an unsuccessful defendant in relation to liability report fees. See further below and also Practice Note: Conditional fee agreements after 1 April 2013—personal injury and clinical negligence.

Before