The government’s plans to implement Lord Justice Jackson’s headline civil costs reforms are a ‘devastating attack on access to justice’, the Law Society warned on Tuesday.

Justice secretary Kenneth Clarke confirmed this week that legislation will be introduced to implement Jackson’s reforms, which will force winning claimants to pay lawyers out of their own damages.

The Society said the fact that Jackson himself had wanted his reforms implemented as a complete package appears to have been overlooked by the Ministry of Justice.

The government also opened a consultation on reforming the county court system, proposing to extend the use of the low-value road traffic accident scheme and expand it to other spheres of personal injury.

Law Society president Linda Lee said: ‘Taken together with the government’s legal aid reforms, these plans on civil costs funding mean that ordinary people won’t be able to obtain proper redress for the wrongs they have suffered.

'Jackson’s recommendations were a series of opinion-based views, and did not rely on sufficient empirical evidence or properly conducted impact assessments.’

She added: ‘The MoJ is about to implement a devastating attack on access to justice.’

Clarke said: ‘Most people dread going to court because of all the cost and anxiety it involves. We must change that by helping them to avoid court where possible, and cutting costs where that is unavoidable.

‘With no major reform for 15 years, the civil justice system has got out of kilter. Businesses and other people who have been sued can find that spiralling legal costs, slow court processes, unnecessary litigation and the "no win no fee" structures, which mean greater payments to lawyers than to claimants, are setting them back millions of pounds each year.’

Under the government’s civil costs reforms, lawyers will no longer be able to recover success fees and after-the-event insurance from losing defendants; lawyers’ success fees will be capped at 25% in personal injury cases; contingency fees will be permitted; and general damages will rise by 10%.

In the new consultation, Solving Disputes in the County Courts: Creating a Simpler, Quicker and More Proportionate System, the government proposes a number of things.

Firstly, increase the maximum value of claims in the low-value RTA scheme from £10,000 to £50,000, and extend it to employers’ liability and public liability personal injury claims; increase the minimum value of High Court claims from £25,000 to £100,000; raise the maximum value for claims through the small-claims process from £5,000 to £15,000; introduce compulsory mediation for small claims; run mediation awareness sessions for higher-value claims; make mediation settlements enforceable by the courts; introduce enforcement orders for small claims; and create a single national county court jurisdiction.