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

Abstract

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.