The ethics of conditional fee arrangements

In this Report the Working Group considers the ethical implications raised for the legal professions by the advent of conditional fee arrangements. They suggest that Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs) raise inevitable and serious conflicts of interest between clients and lawyers, and between lawyers' financial interests and their duties to the courts. Furthermore the financial interests of insurance companies, which now occupy a central role on both sides in legal actions, will have a profound impact on access to justice and the ethics of practice. The Working Group examine in the Report areas of sometimes acute ethical difficulty, and where it is possible to do so, suggests what can be done to ameliorate the problems.