Given that an adverse cost award for a two-week long personal injury trial could be as high as $100,000, it is hard to argue against purchasing a cost protection product for clients, Toronto personal injury lawyer Darryl Singer tells Recovery magazine.
Adverse cost protection products — which cover the risk that a trial might result in an adverse cost award — is a concept imported from Britain, which is now being marketed to personal injury plaintiffs and lawyers in Canada, the article explains.
Recovery notes that personal injury lawyers who have incorporated these products into their practices say mitigating the risk of an adverse cost order helps clients feel comfortable rejecting an unsatisfactory settlement offer.
“We have insurance for everything else,” Singer, principal of Singer Barristers Professional Corporation, explains. “This is just a form of insurance, and it’s relatively inexpensive if you buy it early enough in the process.”
“It allows people to say, ‘I think I have a meritorious case; my lawyer thinks I have a meritorious case. Let’s go to trial,’” he adds.
Singer has purchased BridgePoint protection to cover all his files and eliminate the risk of having clients frightened into settling suits or walking away from their cases, he says in the article. He bills clients for the premium as part of his disbursements.