Clients want their law firms to offer fixed fees or conditional fee agreements (CFAs) when handling commercial disputes, a new survey inspired by the Woolf reforms has revealed.
The survey of 100 companies, conducted by national firm Edge Ellison, found that 95% of the companies surveyed would favour fixed fees in either all or some cases, rather than have solicitors bill by the hour.
And 91% said they would be interested in entering into CFAs in either all or some cases. Only 4% said they would never be interested.
Other key findings included:
l One in three companies surveyed had used mediation to resolve a dispute and nearly all found that it was successful.
l The quality that clients rated most highly in a solicitor handling disputes was commercialism, well ahead of the next most important qualities: aggression, caution and conciliatoriness.
l Given the choice, a small majority of clients would prefer that court hearings were handled by their solicitors, not a barrister.
Digby Rose, Edge Ellison's head of litigation, said: "The survey confirms that the idea of conditional fees is very appealing to clients. A conditional fee arrangement may not always be on offer but a realistic alternative may be a fixed fee for the whole or part of a case."