Hybrid conditional fee agreement invalidated (completely): : Diag Human SE v Volterra Fietta [2023] EWCA Civ 1107

It has been received wisdom for more than 20 years that a conditional fee agreement ( CFA) that did not comply with the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 s.58 and s.58A was invalid. In Diag Human v Volterra Fietta the retainer was hybrid, i.e. the solicitor was remunerated in part by hourly rate and in part by success fee. The success fee was an invalid CFA but the solicitors argued that they could still be paid through the hourly rate. The Court of Appeal rejected all of the solicitors’ arguments, so that they earned nothing for their efforts on their clients’ behalf. The decision seems correct even if the consequences for the solicitors were harsh. Some wider reflection about CFAs will also be offered in the discussion below.