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25.3
These Proposals
aimed at increasing costs transparency as between client and solicitor, as between the
parties to the litigation and vis-à-vis the court and the public at large.
Why should one seek to increase such transparency The answer is in the underlying
assumption, generally accepted, including by the Working Party, that the overall level
of fees and costs should in principle be determined by the market - and not by official
regulation (save for the prevention of abuse).
For the legal services market to operate freely and efficiently, consumers of such
services need relevant information about the cost and quality of those services. Such
information is presently very limited and unevenly distributed. Large institutional
plaintiffs or defendants who engage repeatedly in litigation are usually well-informed,
but other litigants tend to have little reliable information. This impedes their ability to
make an informed choice of the lawyers to instruct, to negotiate fees meaningfully and
to assess exposure to costs, both their own and the other side's costs, if they should
lose. Such uncertainty is likely to cause some parties not to sue at all or to reach an
unsatisfactory settlement. Lack of information as to going rates also hampers the
court in arriving at fair summary assessments of costs or when taxing a bill.
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