Evidence, Practice and Procedure: Funding Family Proceedings – The Solicitor’s Charge and Sears Tooth

The purpose of this note is to ask whether in the light of the solicitors' statutory charge (Solicitors Act 1974 s 73(1)) there is ever any need for clients to sign a ‘Sears Tooth' agreement; or as it is termed in Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 s 22ZA(4)(b) ‘a charge over any assets recovered in the proceedings' (echoing the words of Wilson LJ in Currey v Currey (No 2) [2007] 1 FLR 946 CA on an application for a costs allowance: that the applicant must ‘demonstrate that she cannot reasonably procure legal services by the offer of a charge upon ultimate capital recovery' (para [20])). A Sears Tooth assignment properly so called is named after Sears Tooth v Payne Hicks Beach [1997] 2 FLR 116 where Wilson J held that an assignment of the capital benefit of the outcome of ancillary relief proceedings to cover solicitor's costs was not champertous...

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