Claimant lawyers have pledged to fight any extension of fixed fees to mid and high value claims despite the compromise deal on litigation costs reached last month to introduce predictable costs in low value personal injury cases.

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Apil), the main representative body for claimant lawyers, has already indicated that it will oppose any moves to extend the model to claims above £10,000.

An Apil spokesman commented: "We have made it very clear that we accept only that there is a place for fixed costs in lower value traffic claims and we will resist robustly any attempt to introduce fixed costs for other types of personal injury cases."

The agreement, which was hammered out by the Civil Justice Council's (CJC's) so-called Big Tent forum on costs after a year of wrangling, includes a framework for fixed fees on road traffic accident (RTA) claims that settle pre-issue for £10,000 or less.

The agreement, which has already been welcomed by the Law Society, means that the group will not reconvene on this issue, effectively disbanding.

Under the terms of the deal, claimant solicitors will be paid costs of £800 per case, plus 20% of damages on RTA claims that settle for £5,000 or less, changing to 15% of damages for claims between £5,000 and £10,000.

Although this framework will only apply to relatively small claims that settle without court proceedings being issued, almost half of all personal injury claims arise from RTAs, 85% of which are for less than £10,000. The vast majority settle pre-issue.

The CJC is now in the process of formally drawing up the proposals. They will then be presented to the Lord Chancellor's Department and it is expected that they will go through in the spring. The system will then be reviewed after it has been running for two years.

However, despite the difficulty of reaching even limited agreement on costs, industry insiders believe pressure remains for some form of fixed costs on fast track and multi-track cases.