The Court of Appeal has allocated a day and a half in the last week of February to hear the appeal in Belsner v Cam Legal Services Ltd [2020] EWHC 2755 (QB). The case revisits the issue of informed consent in the context of what a client will be liable to pay their own legal representative.
In Herbert v HH Law Ltd [2018] EWHC 580 (QB), the Court of Appeal held that a client merely agreeing to give up part of their damages to help fund the litigation was not good enough. Had she been given a clear explanation as to how that deduction was calculated, she would not have agreed to it. The absence of informed consent rendered the deduction excessive, and the client was to be reimbursed £349. One might sneer at such a trivial sum. The court ordered the solicitor to pay £30,000 on account of costs to those who had raised the challenge.
There is absolutely nothing improper about requiring the client
