COURT OF APPEAL RULING ON BTE NON-PANEL SOLICITOR RATES…

…REFLECTS COMMERCIAL REALITY OF LEGAL SERVICES SAY ARC LEGAL

Arc Legal Assistance (Arc Legal) has welcomed the recent ruling by the Court of Appeal on non-panel law firm rates for Before the Event (BTE) legal expenses work.

The appeal court said that legal expenses insurers are obliged to pay non-panel firms an “appropriate” rate, and no more, to ensure policyholders have a meaningful freedom of choice of solicitor.

Commenting on the Court of Appeal ruling, Helen Withers, Managing Director of Arc Legal, said: “The days of legal expenses insurance cover representing a blank cheque book to law firms are long gone. The appeal court recognised that legal services are becoming increasingly commoditised and that solicitors need to be cost efficient and commercially realistic if they want their costs to be fully covered by legal expenses insurance policies.

Withers added: “If this decision had gone the wrong way, the ability of significant numbers of individual policyholders to access justice, thanks to low-cost legal expenses policies, would have effectively been removed. That is the commercial reality of this ruling.”