Contingency Fees

The campaign to introduce the American system of contingency fees to replace conditional fees, and even between-the-parties orders for costs, gained further impetus at a conference sponsored by APIL and FOIL. Delegates were broadly in favour of contingency fees. The president of FOIL, Andrew Parker, said that a contingency system has a role to play, while the president of APIL, Frances McCarthy, said damages would need to rise considerably for the system to work, and the APIL vice-president, Patrick Allen, observed there was nothing intrinsically evil about contingency fees.