Highs, lows, successes & appreciative clients—Richard Spector shares his personal experience of damages-based agreements
- Presents a solicitor’s personal experience of running damages-based agreement cases.
- A low experience was where satellite litigation reduced the fee despite the case succeeding.
- Outcomes are mainly positive, with good returns especially where cases settle early, and strengthens bonds between solicitor and client.
I have always thought of myself as one of the few solicitors who is a leading proponent of damages-based agreements (DBAs). DBAs are a form of fee agreement whereby the solicitor acts on a no-win no-fee basis and is entitled to a percentage of any damages recovered by the client.
DBAs were introduced by the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013, SI 2013/609, and have not proven overly popular among solicitors so far. Solicitors have been reluctant to take on the additional risk of a DBA where, if they lose, they get nothing at all and, if they win, their fees depend on the amount of damages recovered. Damages are always strongly contested and the assessment of damages at the outset
