Legal Cost Specialists

More horror stories

The negative impact of the Jackson reforms continues apace.

Virtually simultaneous to the news about Just Costs, is the announcement that defendant costs firm Cost Advocates is to close at the end of the year.

As an example of the rise and fall of the costs industry, Cost Advocates’ story is, perhaps, even more dramatic than that of Just Costs.

Cost Advocates (then Cost Auditing) was purchased by outsourcing giant Capita in 2002 for an initial consideration of £4.9m in cash with additional deferred payments of potentially another £3m.

1 thought on “More horror stories”

  1. I see that Kerry Underwood expects that after the commercial court pilot of fixed costs in all claims up to £500,000 that the County Court jurisdiction will be changed to that limit, and that all County Court matters will attract fixed costs. Claims worth more than £500K being automatically destined for the High Court. No bills, no budgets, no nothing in all claims up to £500,000.

    Considering that only a couple of percent of all civil litigation is worth more than £100,000, surely that expansion will mean almost all external costs providers will end up closing? I can easily see an environment where there are only 2 providers left – and even then just to deal with conflicts!

    Or are we going to see the introduction of the “1 day per week” in house costs person? There’s not going to be sufficient case loads to support more than that.

    I wonder if there will be enough work for more than a couple of dozen costs specialists across the entire jurisdiction.

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