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NLJ this week: Singing the praises of DBAs

17 March 2023
Issue: 8017 / Categories: Legal News , Procedure & practice , Costs , Damages , Legal services
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Damages-based agreements (DBAs) are the seldom-used option when it comes to ‘no win no fee’ cases, but is their lack of popularity justified? In this week’s NLJ, solicitor and DBA-proponent Richard Spector, partner at Spector Constant and Williams shares his personal experience of running DBA cases.

Spector shares some insights and tips from his experience of running DBAs.

While there have been some negatives, he reveals that his experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. What’s more, there are some definite advantages of DBAs over conditional fee agreements, for example, he writes, ‘the DBA is genuinely like a joint venture between solicitor and client.

‘If the client is successful, then so is the solicitor. Similarly, if the client fails to win or achieve a good recovery, then the solicitor gets paid nothing or very little. The solicitor and client are in it together.’ 

Read more of his success stories here.

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NEWS
Tech companies will be legally required to prevent material that encourages or assists serious self-harm appearing on their platforms, under Online Safety Act 2023 regulations due to come into force in the autumn
Commercial leasehold, the defence of insanity and ‘consent’ in the criminal law are among the next tranche of projects for the Law Commission
The Bar has a culture of ‘impunity’ and ‘collusive bystanding’ in which making a complaint is deemed career-ending due to a ‘cohort of untouchables’ at the top, Baroness Harriet Harman KC has found
Lawyers have broadly welcomed plans to electronically tag up to 22,000 more offenders, scrap most prison terms below a year and make prisoners ‘earn’ early release
David Lammy, Ellie Reeves and Baroness Levitt have taken up office at the Ministry of Justice, following the cabinet reshuffle
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