The legal pressure group Lawyers for Media Standards has threatened judicial review over Jack Straw's plans to cut the maximum success fee lawyers can charge in libel cases.
This month the justice secretary announced announced he was going to reduce no-win-no-fee bonuses from 100% to 10%.
Caroline Kean, a partner at the law firm Wiggin, who defends media groups, said the plan was "an extremely good day for freedom of speech".
But now Lawyers for Media Standards has written to Straw asking him to suspend his decision. The letter claims that the decision was unlawful because the consultation process was "inadequate".
Lawyers working on conditional fee agreements (CFAs) can double their normal fees by recovering success fee costs from the losing defendants in defamation and privacy cases.
The draft proposals on CFAs have been published, along with explanation notes.
