How many people work in the field of legal costs? Let us ignore from the figures the army of support staff such as secretaries and IT experts, legal costs recruiters, those journalists and publishers who deal with costs publications, specialist costs counsel and even members of the judiciary. (I should warn junior readers that ignoring […]
How many law costs draftsmen are there? Read More »
In response to my tweet (for those of you who use Twitter you can follow us on @GWS_LAW) giving a link to my post on Costs Lawyer training standards, Neil Rose (editor of Costs Lawyer magazine, Litigation Funding and Legal Futures) responded: “@GWS_LAW But non-ACL costs draftsmen can appear before courts without any oversight/training –
Costs Lawyer advocacy standards Read More »
I recently received a copy of an anonymous letter addressed to the Legal Services Board. A copy of the letter had also been sent to the Bar Council, Law Society and ILEX. The letter had apparently been written by a costs lawyer. The gist of the letter can be gathered from this sentence: “My concern
Costs Lawyer advocacy – continued Read More »
I used to have an eccentric aunt who would write angry and irrational letters to the local paper. I must take after my aunt as I keep finding myself using the Legal Costs Blog as the equivalent of an irate letter to the local rag. On the subject of “angry and irrational”, the costs lawyer
Costs Lawyer standards Read More »
My latest Update: Costs for Solicitors Journal is now available to view online. The “apportionment” subject is fraught with complexity and I won’t pretend this is meant to be a definitive analysis of the issue or that the two first instance decisions mentioned, where I was acting for the defendants, would necessarily be decided the
Unlawful and grotesque funding arrangement? Read More »
The Association of Law Costs Draftsmen’s chairman Iain Stark was reported in Post Magazine (see link) as warning law firms against using uninsured legal costs advisors to draw up complex bills. This was on the basis that: “If a mistake or a delay in delivering the bill of costs is detrimental to the client, the
Association of Law Costs Draftsmen warning Read More »
Association of Law Costs Draftsmen member Sue Nash has written the following letter to ALCD members: Dear All, I am very aware having seen and read e-mail correspondence between members (as well as the GWS blog) as well as through discussions with fellow draftsmen, that there is a considerable amount of unease and dissatisfaction with
Robert Males, writing in New Law Journal, expressed the view that: “I believe the solicitor is the best person to deal with negotiation and settlement of costs. If the matter proceeds to assessment then while the costs draftsman may be perfectly capable of putting forward the technical arguments in terms of costs recovery the conducting
Costs draftsman v Solicitor Read More »
Legal Futures reports: “The government is set to take forward Lord Young’s proposals to extend the road traffic claims process to all low-value personal injury and clinical negligence cases, while the Jackson reforms are imminent, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed [on Monday]. Publishing its business plan and milestones for 2011-15 for consultation as part
Extension of new claims process "imminent" Read More »
I recently received an email from a costs draftsman that had the following words at the bottom: Sent from my iPhone As you can imagine, I was suitably impressed. My mobile phone is only one step up from a tin can and one end of a long piece of string. Only with worse reception. However,
Tech savvy law costs draftsmen Read More »
