October 2016

There is a firm of costs solicitors whose website states, as one of the reasons to instruct them to deal with costs budgeting: “As a firm of solicitors, all of our advocates have rights of audience at CCMCs, something which costs draftsmen and costs lawyers who are not employed by solicitors do not.” It is

Costs budgeting is currently one of the great failures of the Jackson reforms, despite the ever hopeful views expressed by some members of the judiciary.  Many explanations can be given but the comments made by Mr Justice Stuart-Smith in his keynote speech at the Costs Law Reports Conference 2016 are revealing: “the expectation of Jackson