Pro bono or Conditional Fee Arrangement (CFA)?

[G-Unit]

As I said I wonder why this matters.

Different things matter to different people. I have seen people questioning the relevance/importance of threads started by you.

[Sunny]

Pro Bono

adverb: pro bono
denoting work undertaken without charge, especially legal work for a client on low income.
"the attorneys are representing him pro bono"
synonyms:free, gratis, unpaid, unrewarded, unsalaried, free of charge, without charge, for nothing, at no cost, without payment, for the common good; More
Origin
from Latin pro bono publico ‘for the public good’.

The only reason this is being discussed is that some posters insist that pro bono only means free to the client. It does not. If they would only agree with the facts of what pro bono actually means then this thread could be finished.

[G-Unit]

Pro Bono

adverb: pro bono
denoting work undertaken without charge, especially legal work for a client on low income.
"the attorneys are representing him pro bono"
synonyms:free, gratis, unpaid, unrewarded, unsalaried, free of charge, without charge, for nothing, at no cost, without payment, for the common good; More
Origin
from Latin pro bono publico ‘for the public good’.

The only reason this is being discussed is that some posters insist that pro bono only means free to the client. It does not. If they would only agree with the facts of what pro bono actually means then this thread could be finished.

Precisely! 

[Angelo222]

I agree.  One could hardly consider CR doing some freebies for the McCanns as being for the common good.

[Brietta]

Clearly for some people, the fact that a fund which was created to search for a missing child has been abused to the extent it has does not sit too well. The false promises of transparency only serving to reinforce and compound this view.

Madeleine disappeared over eleven years ago ... the successful legal complaint made against the press by her parents which cost neither them or Madeleine's Fund a penny piece ... but the funding thereof and the syntax used to describe the funding thereof remains the subject of heated debate.

Why?  In my opinion the eleven year negative obsession with the minutiae of the lives of people neither met or known is unhealthy and reflects very badly as an illustration of exactly how the internet should not be used.

[jassi]

Madeleine disappeared over eleven years ago ... the successful legal complaint made against the press by her parents which cost neither them or Madeleine's Fund a penny piece ... but the funding thereof and the syntax used to describe the funding thereof remains the subject of heated debate.

Why?  In my opinion the eleven year negative obsession with the minutiae of the lives of people neither met or known is unhealthy and reflects very badly as an illustration of exactly how the internet should not be used.

And yet here we all still are, yourself included. 

[Sunny]

Madeleine disappeared over eleven years ago ... the successful legal complaint made against the press by her parents which cost neither them or Madeleine's Fund a penny piece ... but the funding thereof and the syntax used to describe the funding thereof remains the subject of heated debate.

Why?  In my opinion the eleven year negative obsession with the minutiae of the lives of people neither met or known is unhealthy and reflects very badly as an illustration of exactly how the internet should not be used.

You may think that but then surely the things we are here to find out are FACTS in this case. The fact that CR were paid (and by whom) is a definite fact and one which some posters on here don't seem to understand.   They didn't do it for free, they expected to get paid by someone either the mccanns or the other side.

[Brietta]

The thread isn't about the reasons why the McCanns acted against the press or about what they did with the damages they won. It's about the arrangement between the McCanns and Carter-Ruck during the case against Express Newspapers.

The arrangement the McCanns made with their lawyers isn't important. It only gained importance when it was suggested that it was a pro bono arrangement when it clearly wasn't imo.

Indeed ... which returns us to the very salient point of exactly why your posts are made in terms of unfounded and in my opinion libellous innuendo as the main feature.

Snip
It took two months of wrangling before Express Newspapers capitulated, by which time an application had been made to the court. That's why both parties attended the court in March.
A similar complaint was made against Associated Newspapers. They also paid compensation and printed an apology, but never attended court. That means that no application to the court was made regarding that complaint. It has never been claimed that the money paid by them was donated to the Fund.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475633#msg475633

In my opinion that post ranks as disingenuous insinuation.  There is no substance to that claim and you have posted that you can find none.

At the time of the action under discussion Robert Murat had embarked on similar litigation which unlike the settlement only achieved last week in Portugal against a TV station I believe, was settled at the time.

Snip
In July, Murat accepted more than £600,000 in damages from 11 British newspapers after he was libelled in more than 100 articles.
The Express Newspapers-owned Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star; Associated Newspapers' Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and Metro; Mirror Group Newspapers' Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror and Scottish Daily Record; and News Group's Sun and News of the World acknowledged that the stories they had run about Murat over nine months were entirely untrue and should never have been printed.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/16/dailyexpress-sundayexpress

You obviously have more information than the rest of us when it comes to posting about what did and what din not go into Madeleine's Fund as a result of actions which did not cost the litigants one penny.

Madeleine McCann: Express apologises to the 'tapas seven' in high court

Express Newspapers today apologised in the high court to the "tapas seven" and paid them £375,000 in libel damages for printing false allegations about them after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Today's apology came after Express Newspapers titles the Daily Express and Daily Star printed apologies to the "tapas seven".

Adam Tudor, from law firm Carter-Ruck, representing the group, said in the statement read out in the high court: "The defendant accepts that these allegations are wholly untrue and there was no evidence to support them.

The £375,000 damages payment will go to the Find Madeleine Fund. Express Newspapers has also agreed to pay the legal costs of the "tapas seven".
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/16/dailyexpress-sundayexpress

Snip
Damages understood to be in the range of six figures will be paid to the Find Madeleine fund. Sky News reported that the sum could be as high as £550,000.

Express Newspapers will also pay all legal costs.

"All the money is going to the fund, none of it is going to the family," said Sonia Beldom, a spokesman for the fund. She declined to give details on how much the damages were worth.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582175/Papers-apologise-to-Madeleine-McCann-parents.html


You have made a post concerning an out of court settlement about which no-one but you appears to have any knowledge ...

I have been unable to find any claim that compensation paid to the McCanns by Associated Press was put into the Fund. I am happy to be corrected if anyone knows more than I do about that.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475776#msg475776


In my opinion either amending your original unsubstantiated post containing your misinformed musings ranks of far more importance to the integrity of the information contained in the forum than argument about syntax.
 

[Sunny]

In my opinion either amending your original unsubstantiated post containing your misinformed musings ranks of far more importance to the integrity of the information contained in the forum than argument about syntax.

Snipped from your longer post Brietta. This "argument" as you call it is not about syntax it is about what the legal (note) phrase Pro Bono (shortened from Pro Bono Publico) means. Yourself and others seem to either willfully or though ignorance ignore the fact that this is a term used in law and not just a random phrase in latin.

[Brietta]

You may think that but then surely the things we are here to find out are FACTS in this case. The fact that CR were paid (and by whom) is a definite fact and one which some posters on here don't seem to understand.   They didn't do it for free, they expected to get paid by someone either the mccanns or the other side.

The accused newspapers paid for the lot.  The McCanns ... their friends ... and Murat.  At the end of the day the Great British Public paid for the lot in terms of increased circulation.

In my opinion it is really weird that those who worry about syntax are less than interested in justice being done on behalf of those maligned.

[Brietta]

Snipped from your longer post Brietta. This "argument" as you call it is not about syntax it is about what the legal (note) phrase Pro Bono (shortened from Pro Bono Publico) means. Yourself and others seem to either willfully or though ignorance ignore the fact that this is a term used in law and not just a random phrase in latin.

In my opinion it reflects mainly the chagrin of some that the parents of a missing child won their case against lies which in essence reflect the core beliefs held by people who run internet campaigns featuring the same proven lies.

It may have escaped your notice ... we are a discussion forum of disparate individuals ... in law our opinions count for nothing much and I doubt this thread in particular adds anything at all to the sum of human knowledge.

[faithlilly]

In my opinion it reflects mainly the chagrin of some that the parents of a missing child won their case against lies which in essence reflect the core beliefs held by people who run internet campaigns featuring the same proven lies.

It may have escaped your notice ... we are a discussion forum of disparate individuals ... in law our opinions count for nothing much and I doubt this thread in particular adds anything at all to the sum of human knowledge.

My ‘chagrin’ as you call it lies squarely with the poster who has tried over two threads to suggest the CR worked pro bono for the McCanns and that that pro bono work was somehow a reflection in their faith in the McCann’s innocence. Even before the litigation process started and at every juncture subsequently CR were paid handsomely and of course that work had little to do with the lawyers belief in either the McCanns guilt or innocence and everything to do with money and profile.

[G-Unit]

Indeed ... which returns us to the very salient point of exactly why your posts are made in terms of unfounded and in my opinion libellous innuendo as the main feature.

Snip
It took two months of wrangling before Express Newspapers capitulated, by which time an application had been made to the court. That's why both parties attended the court in March.
A similar complaint was made against Associated Newspapers. They also paid compensation and printed an apology, but never attended court. That means that no application to the court was made regarding that complaint. It has never been claimed that the money paid by them was donated to the Fund.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475633#msg475633

In my opinion that post ranks as disingenuous insinuation.  There is no substance to that claim and you have posted that you can find none.

At the time of the action under discussion Robert Murat had embarked on similar litigation which unlike the settlement only achieved last week in Portugal against a TV station I believe, was settled at the time.

Snip
In July, Murat accepted more than £600,000 in damages from 11 British newspapers after he was libelled in more than 100 articles.
The Express Newspapers-owned Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star; Associated Newspapers' Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and Metro; Mirror Group Newspapers' Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror and Scottish Daily Record; and News Group's Sun and News of the World acknowledged that the stories they had run about Murat over nine months were entirely untrue and should never have been printed.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/16/dailyexpress-sundayexpress

You obviously have more information than the rest of us when it comes to posting about what did and what din not go into Madeleine's Fund as a result of actions which did not cost the litigants one penny.

Madeleine McCann: Express apologises to the 'tapas seven' in high court

Express Newspapers today apologised in the high court to the "tapas seven" and paid them £375,000 in libel damages for printing false allegations about them after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Today's apology came after Express Newspapers titles the Daily Express and Daily Star printed apologies to the "tapas seven".

Adam Tudor, from law firm Carter-Ruck, representing the group, said in the statement read out in the high court: "The defendant accepts that these allegations are wholly untrue and there was no evidence to support them.

The £375,000 damages payment will go to the Find Madeleine Fund. Express Newspapers has also agreed to pay the legal costs of the "tapas seven".
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/oct/16/dailyexpress-sundayexpress

Snip
Damages understood to be in the range of six figures will be paid to the Find Madeleine fund. Sky News reported that the sum could be as high as £550,000.

Express Newspapers will also pay all legal costs.

"All the money is going to the fund, none of it is going to the family," said Sonia Beldom, a spokesman for the fund. She declined to give details on how much the damages were worth.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582175/Papers-apologise-to-Madeleine-McCann-parents.html


You have made a post concerning an out of court settlement about which no-one but you appears to have any knowledge ...

I have been unable to find any claim that compensation paid to the McCanns by Associated Press was put into the Fund. I am happy to be corrected if anyone knows more than I do about that.
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475776#msg475776


In my opinion either amending your original unsubstantiated post containing your misinformed musings ranks of far more importance to the integrity of the information contained in the forum than argument about syntax.

Two claims have been made.

1. Carter-Ruck worked pro bono for the McCanns in their action against Express Newspapers.
2. A writ against Express Newspapers was not the reason a High Court hearing was arranged.

Number 1 has, in my opinion, been shown to be false.
Number 2 has not been explained. How did the parties end up in the High Court if no writ was issued?

Two out-of-court settlements were reached in 2008. One was with Express newspapers and the other was with Associated Press. One involved an appearance at the High Court and the other didn't. Why?

[Brietta]

My ‘chagrin’ as you call it lies squarely with the poster who has tried over two threads to suggest the CR worked pro bono for the McCanns and that that pro bono work was somehow a reflection in their faith in the McCann’s innocence. Even before the litigation process started and at every juncture subsequently CR were paid handsomely and of course that work had little to do with the lawyers belief in either the McCanns guilt or innocence and everything to do with money and profile.

There is no doubt what the legal definition is http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475989#msg475989 neither is there the slightest doubt that the actions taken by the lawyers cost the litigants nothing.

I am actually a lot more concerned about unfounded innuendo than syntax.

[faithlilly]

There is no doubt what the legal definition is http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=9874.msg475989#msg475989 neither is there the slightest doubt that the actions taken by the lawyers cost the litigants nothing.

I am actually a lot more concerned about unfounded innuendo than syntax.

Please explain the connection between unfounded innuendo and whether CR worked pro bono ?

Whether CR worked pro bono or were paid handsomely the McCanns would have paid nothing personally as either the fund or a wealthy benefactor would have picked up the tab.