Contingency fees are always in the news, and there has been steady a steady stream of judgments, some contradicting others, that to a large extent appear to be sounding the death knoll of common law contingency unless the Constitutional Court agrees with the Law Society. The Contingency Fees Act agreement is workable, but only if some of the recent judgments in that regard are not upheld later, because again they also differ and some of them are really based on erroneous assumptions, such as the recent judgment which referred to party and party costs in a typical High Court matter being only R15 000,00. Right now this is a terribly confusing field, which makes a speech that I have been asked to give at the Law Society’s AGM on Saturday, 10 November 2012, even more difficult to do, but I am going to give it my best shot and advise the 500 plus members that are expected to attend as to the latest developments.