Contingency fee agreements in Zimbabwe

Historically, third party funding agreements were prohibited in Zimbabwe. P Kanokanga, Law of Costs in Zimbabwe: Text, Cases and Materials (2021) 564 states that:

Until the introduction of the Legal Practitioners (Contingency Fee Arrangements), 2014, legal practitioners in Zimbabwe were precluded in terms of the common law from concluding contingency fee arrangements with their clients as such agreements were deemed to be contra bona mores and prohibited in terms of the common law.

The same author defines, a contingency fee agreement as a ‘third-party funding agreement which was introduced to facilitate access to court, which is a fundamental right for a large number of people in this country who cannot afford the considerable costs of legal services.’ Thus, contingency fee agreements facilitate access to justice as they enable litigants to obtain legal representation to prosecute their claims where the litigant may otherwise have been unable to do so by reason of the prohibitive cost of litigation.