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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Anyone concerned about the recent proposal to scale fees in litigation / limit our earnings? Will this cause a drop in the salary of litigation associates?
Personally I think this will affect the small-mid firms the most who do the bulk of low-mid value litigation work. For high value litigation work, the rewards are still there e.g. for a 10m claim the cap is about $140k (still lower than now of course). Also doesn't affect international arbitration.
Is it still viable to go into liti?
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I agree that it will largely affect the small-mid firms. The fees are still no where near high enough for "high value" litigation work. Fees in a big firm for a 10mn file can range from 600k to 1m. The difference is that clients who require "high value" work are far more likely to agree to exclude scaled fees.
What I think will be the end result would be further stratification of the legal profession. As fees for the small to mid firms go down, these firms will push down their juniors salaries. Coupled with the new rules on qualification, the legal profession will become less and less of an attractive proposition. This will eventually lead to a lack of juniors. We'd become more and more like the HK legal market. Probably not the intended result.