Naomi Campbell (page xii, paperback preface)

The Daily Mirror was faced today with having to pay Naomi Campbell’s lawyers over £1 million in costs after the newspaper lost a challenge to the no-win, no-fee arrangement that enabled the model to win her privacy appeal to the House of Lords last year.
Dismissing the Mirror’s challenge, Lord Hoffmann said the newspaper’s publishers had been “mortified” to find themselves facing a bill of this size — even though Miss Campbell had won only £3,500 in damages and even though only four of the nine judges who considered the case thought that the newspaper should have been liable at all.
The law lord pointed out that once the costs had been assessed by court officials they “may be a good deal lower than the sum demanded”. However, the Mirror faces the additional cost of paying for this latest legal challenge, as well as for its own lawyers’ fees.
Miss Campbell’s claim, over photographs showing her leaving a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous “in a courageous bid to beat her addiction to drink and drugs”, was successful in the High Court in 2002 but overturned by the Court of Appeal later that year.
Schillings, the law firm that represented Miss Campbell, appealed to the House of Lords on the basis that, if she won, they would be paid a “success fee” of 95 per cent and their counsel would be paid double the normal fees. This increased the lawyers’ bills from £288,000 to £594,000. If she had lost, her lawyers would have been paid nothing.
Miss Campbell won her final appeal to the Lords last year by a majority of three to two. Under the rules for conditional fee arrangements, success fees may be charged to the losing side.
The newspaper claimed that the threat of having to pay heavy legal fees interfered with its right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Human Rights Convention. It argued that a success fee of up to 100 per cent was disproportionate. It was also unnecessary, because Miss Campbell could have afforded to pay her own lawyers in the normal way.
These arguments were “flawed”, the five judges agreed. It was unnecessary and impractical for claimants to take a means test before going to court.
The law lords drew attention to the “blackmailing effect” of no-win, no-fee litigation but concluded that the matter should be left for Parliament to resolve.
The full judgment may be read here.

Posted at October 20, 2005 11:45 AM