Litigation Costs and Before-the-Event Insurance: The Key to Access to Justice?

What is it about?

The cost of civil litigation is a key factor in determining the extent of access to justice. Following cuts in legal aid attention has focused upon finding alternative methods of assisting litigants without producing costs which are out of proportion to the damages obtained. The recent report by Lord Justice Jackson attempts to deal with concerns about increasing and disproportionate costs said to arise in part because of the encouragement of conditional fee agreements. This article considers the proposals made in the report, and argues that too little attention has been paid to before-the-event insurance as a means of securing access to justice for the great majority of claimants who suffer personal injury.

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Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Access to justice is a key feature when considering how fair is a legal system. Using insurance to gain access to courts and lawyers may go some way to balancing the disproportional resources of many claimants when compared with corporate defendants. Insurance in this context has remained under researched in the UK. It offers a new opportunity to fund litigation fairly.