CPR PD 21, par 11.3 applies where a claimant’s litigation friend (at the instigation of the claimant’s solicitor) seeks to have what is more often than not 25% of the claimant’s damages paid to the claimant’s solicitor by way of a conditional fee agreement success fee. Is it proper for a judge to decline to approve the settlement on the sole ground that the success fee sought is excessive? If the judge does approve subject to only part of the success fee sought being clawed back from the damages, does that put the litigation friend in peril of being sued for the shortfall?
It is not uncommon for the judge to be unhappy about the size of the success fee in an uncomplicated claim where there could never have been any serious argument about liability or quantum. A typical example is a whiplash claim by child claimant in a motoring accident where it is plain as a pikestaff that the defendant was entirely negligent for the accident. Nor is it uncommon for the claimant’s solicitor on the approval appointment to fail to produce
