Legal Costs

The latest Costs Law Reports newsletter reports: “Moreover, alert practitioners are already seeking to punish paying parties who fail to provide with their points of dispute an open letter setting out the sum they are willing to offer in settlement (see Practice Direction para 8.3 to CPR 47.9). Applications to strike out points of dispute […]

There appears to be considerable confusion as to the interrelationship between costs budgets and the indemnity principle. The normally infallible Dominic Regan, writing in Litigation Funding magazine, said: “Incidentally, there is no consolation for a party who, say, exceeds the budget on a given item by, for example, £10,000 – but miraculously comes in under

Last week Hailsham Chambers held their annual Costs Group Seminar and it was another excellent, thought provoking event. I understand an audio recording of the seminar exists and hopefully this will be made available as a podcast. One of the questions from the floor concerned the interrelationship between DBA and costs budgets. The rules do

Commenting on the shock 57% jump in public liability claims in 2012/13 an APIL press release says: “This is the final proof, if ever proof were needed, that the compensation culture is out of control. It is inconceivable that the number of genuine claims would increase by such a staggering amount in such a short

At the recent Association of Costs Lawyers’ Annual Conference a survey was undertaken of delegates. This included a question as to how many members had experienced unqualified costs draftsmen inflating their bills. There was no corresponding question as to how many had experienced qualified, and regulated, Costs Lawyers inflating their bills, nor, for that matter,

A recent email update from Costs Law Reports covered some of the recent changes to the Civil Procedure Rules. This included the following comment: “Parties who wish to make offers to settle the costs can no longer do so by making an offer ‘without prejudice save as to the costs of assessment’. On 1 April

Job advertisement in Costs Lawyer magazine: “specialist Law Cost Practice is looking to recruit an experienced law costs specialist who can deal with bill drafting, PODs and costs budgeting. The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 2 years experience dealing with all areas of Law Costs” Given the limited costs management pilots, I doubt

I note that in relation to preparing costs budgets the Final Report on the Costs Management Pilot records that: “Costs draftsmen were only used in 7% of cases and trainee solicitors or paralegals in 17.2% of cases” Costs budgeting: the saviour of the costs profession?

Costs Law Reports issues a free monthly bulletin. This month’s discusses the new proportionality test. It includes the paragraph: “For work undertaken before 1 April 2013, CPR 44.3(7)(b) provides that CPR 44.4(2)(a) as it was on 31 March 2013 still operates. Thus, where a case was commenced before 1 April 2013, the “old” rules apply

At the question and answer sessions at the Association of Costs Lawyers’ Annual Conference there were a number of complaints from the floor as to the tendency of judges to limit Costs Lawyers’ hourly rates to Grade D guideline rates. This was taken as being a great insult to experienced Costs Lawyers of many years’