Michael Napier

Michael Napier CBE KC[1] is a former president of the Law Society and was the Attorney-General's pro bono envoy between 2001 and 2015.

When Napier was appointed President of the Law Society[3] in 2001 the Office of Fair Trading published its report on competition in the legal profession.

This was followed by Sir David Clementi's report on regulation and the Government's white paper ‘Putting Consumers First’.

Following the introduction of the Access to Justice Act in 1999 Napier was one of the initial appointees to the Civil Justice Council (CJC)[5] on which he served for 10 years and co-authored a number of influential papers on the funding and costs of civil cases.

As a consultant to the CJC he chaired the group that produced the Code of Conduct for third party litigation funders in 2011 and the CJC working party on contingency fees recommended by Lord Justice Jackson's report on civil litigation costs (to which Napier was an assessor) and now legalised by the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act.