Costs draftsmen and other costs professionals are currently living through an interesting period (or possibly that should read “worrying period”). The Legal Costs Division of recruitment agency Adept Recruitment have been sending out marketing literature reporting: “As the 2nd Quarter of 2009 draws to a close we continue to see high levels of Legal Costs […]
Costs draftsmen – Good times or bad? Read More »
As anticipated, the new RTA claims process will not be ready by the original date of October 2009 due to problems agreeing how the scheme will work. A new date of April 2010 has now been set. This latest news coincides with Lord Justice Jackson’s recent comments commending the German costs recovery model. With his
New claims process stumbles Read More »
The majority of those in the costs industry will be more than familiar with Tony Girling, at least by reputation. Tony is former President of the Law Society, sat for many years as a High Court Costs Assessor and was a founder member of the Supreme Court Costs Office Practitioners Group. He is current probably
Retirement of Tony Girling Read More »
Another quick update on an issue I have being covering in previous blogs. This is the problem over drafting the rules to cover the new claims process for low value RTAs. The recent edition of Litigation Funding reports: “We understand that talks between all the stakeholders to define the process are not going well (they
New claims process facing problems Read More »
Whether excessive legal costs are really a problem depends, in part, from what perspective you are considering matters. Defendants have little difficulty appreciating how problematic this issue is. However, claimant representatives have been far slower to join in the criticisms. How strange then that the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) should now join in
APIL complains about excessive costs of litigation Read More »
In previous posts I have been commenting on the proposed new claims process and the problems that arise as to what the relationship will be between the proposed new staged fixed fees under the new claims process and the existing fixed predictable costs (CPR 45.7-45.14). This problem is beginning to look more acute as time
Legal costs uncertainty continues for costs draftsmen and lawyers Read More »
The Sunday Times followed on from last week’s attack on the costs paid out in clinical negligence cases (see previous blog) with a Top 10 list of the firms who were paid the most by the NHSLA in 2007/08: Irwin Mitchell £10.75m Leigh Day £4.87m Pannone LLP £4.83m McMillan Williams £3.01m Kingsley Napley £2.96m Gadsby
The law firms costing NHS millions Read More »
Although The Legal Costs Blog is unashamedly defendant biased, and always ready to have a go at claimant lawyers, even we were somewhat taken back by the attack launched on claimant clinical negligence lawyers in yesterday’s Sunday Times. One article was headed “Lawyers use NHS as £100m cash cow” and another “Lawyers get m0re than
In a previous post I commented on the fact that Cook on Costs 2009 is wrong when it says: "With the removal of the [CFA] Regulations [2000] from 1 November 2005 a CFA needs only to be in writing and signed…". As confirmed by Senior Costs Judge Master Hurst, in Findley v Jones and MIB
Signatures to CFAs Read More »
Many years ago, when I was studying for my law degree, I was told never to simply rely on the headnote of a law report, but to read the judgment in full. This was for two reasons. Firstly, it was often only by reading the full judgment would one properly understand the decision and the
Cole v News Group – The unread judgment Read More »
