Funding and costs

Funding

The usual mechanisms for funding a clinical negligence claim are:

1. •

   legal aid/public funding

2. •

   conditional fee agreement (CFA)

3. •

   after the event (ATE) insurance

4. •

   before the event (BTE) insurance

5. •

   damages-based agreement (DBA)

It is important for the practitioner to make proper enquiries about alternative funding options. The CFA success fee and ATE insurance premium may be disallowed if the solicitor fails to make reasonable enquiries into whether the client could rely on a BTE insurance policy.

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 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