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The only body authorised to provide the Costs Lawyer qualification is ACL Training.  This is wholly owned by the Association of Costs Lawyers.  This is not a stich up but simply a reflection of the fact the demand for training has always been so limited that no other academic organisation would dream of trying to […]

One of the areas of costs I deal with arises from property damage claims; typically following fire, flood or tree root damage. Although these claims are usually pursued in the name of the owner of the damaged property, in reality these are subrogated claimed being brought by the insurer of the property owner and seeking

Gordon Exall’s Civil Litigation Brief is simultaneously invaluable reading for all civil litigators and an example of what is currently wrong with the law. The advent of the interweb, legal blogs and online resources such as BAILII, produces a continuous stream of new “reported” decisions on a daily basis totally unimaginable even 20 years ago.

At some stage, most experienced lawyers are instructed to try to sort out the mess that another lawyer has created.  Over the past couple of months I have twice been instructed to clear up problems created by defective retainers. On both occasions, the source of the problem was firms of solicitors who have traditionally undertaken

I have a case where a claim was brought against two Defendants.  The claim succeeded against both Defendants. The matter was subject to a Costs Management Order with the Claimant having a single approved costs budget in respect of costs concerning both Defendants (with no apportionment between work concerning one Defendant or the other). The

In Harrison v University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust [2017] EWCA Civ 792 the Court of Appeal confirmed that a court, on detailed assessment, would not depart upwards or downwards from the last agreed or approved budget unless there was a good reason to do so.  The battle has now moved on to the issue

The response to the Jackson reforms has taken the classic five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (although not everyone has worked through all the stages yet). When the original reforms were first published, back in 2010, many confidently predicted that the reforms would never come to pass (denial stage) and the

Ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times”. And so, Lord Justice Jackson has published his recommendations for extending fixed fees.  The key proposals for extending fixed recoverable costs (“FRC”) to all fast-track cases, and a significant increase in fixed fees for the majority of claims with a value of up to £100,000, are

In Azure East Midlands v Manchester Airport Group Property Developments Ltd [2014] EWHC 1644 (TCC), a pre-Denton decision, it was held that a delay of two days in filing costs budgets in the context of a time frame of seven days was a “trivial” breach. In Wain v Gloucestershire County Council [2014] EWHC 1274 (TCC), again pre-Denton, the Court

The current prediction is that Lord Justice Jackson will recommend fixed fees are extended to all claims with a value of less than £100,000.  If this is true, and subsequently introduced, there are two obvious issues to comment on: Without undertaking a detailed statistical analysis, it is reasonable to estimate that a figure of £100,000