'Good Wife' legal cases are on the rise in UK as reforms prompt rise in group actions

 
US import: Julianna Margulies stars as lawyer Alicia Florrick in The Good Wife
21 February 2014

Lawyers fear the US legal system’s trigger-happy litigation is making inroads in this country.

Although US-style class actions are not currently permitted under UK law, recent legal reforms mean very similar actions are available — and these group actions are on the rise.

As a result they fear we could soon see scenes in London’s civil courts that are similar to those in hit US TV series The Good Wife, which returned to Britain for a new series this week. The show’s main character, Alicia Florrick — played by Julianna Margulies — is known as the “Class Action Queen”.

In Britain, group actions enable claimants to club together to sue a company or individual — but they have to opt in if they want to join the claim.

By contrast in the US, class actions apply to a whole category of people with similar interests. Once the class is defined, anyone falling within it would be entitled to a share of any damages awarded even if they did not actively participate in the litigation itself, unless they opt out.

The “no-win-no-fee” deals in the US are widely blamed for giving so-called victims little or nothing to lose from trying it on in court. Though measures were brought in last year to curb the popularity of “no win, no fee” in the UK, alternative funding arrangements are on the rise.

David Allen, head of litigation at Mayer Brown, said: “Even big ticket commercial litigation is going through a revolution in how funding is sought to get it off the ground.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in