Q&A


legal firms routinely milk the system for high profits. In the context of healthcare, excessive legal fees cost the NHS and taxpayers many millions of pounds each year. To mutual indemnity providers such as MDDUS it means higher payouts and greater upward pressure on the subscription fees paid by doctors and dentists. In 2008 Lord Justice Rupert Jackson was asked to undertake a fundamental review of excessive civil litigation costs in England and Wales. His report, published in 2010, outlined a raſt of reforms that could provide “significant cost savings”. Lord Jackson was educated at Christ’s


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Hospital and Jesus College, Cambridge, and called to the Bar in 1972. He was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in 1999 and a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2008. He lives in Surrey with his wife who is a prominent local solicitor.


Curbing litigation costs


Summons speaks to Lord Justice Rupert Jackson on reforms aimed at easing the burden of excessive legal costs in clinical negligence cases 10


What prompted the review of civil litigation costs? RJ: The former Master of the Rolls, Anthony Clarke, asked me to undertake a fundamental review of the rules and principles governing the costs of civil litigation. His request reflected his concern about the growing problem of costs not being proportionate to the value of the sums at stake in a claim, and in some cases dramatically exceeding it. There was also a concern about the growth in satellite litigation on the issue of costs rather than the substance of a case.


Your report covered the broad range of civil litigation. What is driving up legal costs for defendants in clinical negligence cases? RJ: I found some common factors in the dramatic rise in costs, to which clinical negligence was by no means immune – the scale of success fees, referral fees and aſter- the-event insurance premium recoverable from losing defendants being key drivers. Another feature that I received many complaints about directly in relation to clinical negligence was the very high pre- action costs such cases have been incurring – I made general and specific recommendations to address this.


SUMMONS


UCCESS FEES, claims farming, aſter- the-event insurance premiums – it has long been recognised that some


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