Britain and Ireland have similar, but different, legal systems. In Britain it is permitted for solicitors and barristers to agree to act for no, or a reduced, fee, conditional on being entitled, on winning the case, to charge the client (and a losing opponent) an enhanced fee (one larger than the norm). This is known as “a conditional fee agreement” (CFA).

This is not possible in Ireland.

In Britain, these CFA arrangements are most common in personal injury claims. In Ireland the principal law applicable to such claims and the terms to be agreed between solicitors and clients is S.I. No. 518/2002 — The Solicitors Acts, 1954 To 2002 Solicitors (Advertising) Regulations, 2002

Under the Regulations it is illegal for a solicitor to advertise “No win, no Fee”. Solicitors are not permitted to calculate their fees by reference to a percentage of the compensation recovered for the client. (Or as the Regulations put it, “In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement”.

Furthermore, not only are solicitors subject to the foregoing restrictions but are also restricted from offering “legal services involving contentious business… at no cost or reduced cost to the client”

Indeed, it is the obligation of a solicitor to give an estimate of the costs of the legal services to the client in writing, at the commencement of the engagement.

Finally, the Regulations provide, inter alia, advertisements shall not “be published in an inappropriate location”.

(We know for sure that the back of a bus is an inappropriate location).

As part of the assault on the constitutional rights of personal injury victims, the Minister for Justice etc. procured the making of a requirement, of such victims, that they write a letter to the person guilty of inflicting the injury within two months of that infliction. That requirement is found in Section 8 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004.

A failure to write the letter within the time may lead to the victim failing to recover legal costs against the wrongdoer, depending on what the judge in the case thinks.

Lawyers have a good word to describe such a provision; that word is “calculated”. The provision is calculated to have considerable downside for the innocent victim, even if it is never put to the test.

Who will feel sufficiently brave to fight to the last ditch, knowing that the letter was not written and that the judge is an unknown quantity?

In short the victim’s morale will be sapped.

That was what the Minister intended.