Conditional Fees – who wins?

 MARKET VIEW – LITIGATION 

Ian Gray, Litigation head at Eversheds, looks back on the firm’s experience of alternative fee arrangements in commercial disputes, explains the lessons learned, and looks ahead to the future of dispute funding

One-off conditional fees

I remember being told around 1998, just prior to the introduction of conditional fees, that the general counsel of one large client was fed up that litigation lawyers did not have any ‘skin in the game’ and that, as a result, they ran cases too far, without a care for the costs. In the years that followed, we did a series of small and large conditional-fee cases. In truth, we had some tough experiences along the way, at times losing more than just some skin.