Legal Cost Specialists
Ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times” With much of the economy in total shutdown, coronavirus has had very limited disruption on my typical working day. When we first set up 14 years ago, it was based on remote working for all fee earners and still is. Other than the fact I will […]
Coping with coronavirus Read More »
Preparation of the Precedent H costs budget requires figures to be inserted for both past incurred work and future estimated work. PD 3E para.7.4 provides: “As part of the costs management process the court may not approve costs incurred before the date of any costs management hearing. The court may, however, record its comments on those
Discrepancy between incurred costs in budget and bill Read More »
The new Guidance Notes on Precedent H, following the update to PD3E para.7.4 (which came into force on 1 October 2019), moves trial brief fees from the Trial phase to the Trial Preparation phase. This is presumably on the basis that the brief will be delivered before the trial commences and liability for the brief fee
Costs budgets and experts’ trial fees Read More »
Why does only the first page of the Precedent H costs budget need to be completed where the value of the claim as stated on the claim form is less than £50,000? This strange provision is explored on our Costs Budgeting Blog.
Completing only the first page of Precedent H Read More »
I’ve run a complete overhaul on Legal Costs Central (the one-stop gateway to legal costs information on the internet) part of our website. This has updated all the relevant rules and fixed a number of broken links. Let me know if there is anything else I should be adding.
Legal Costs Central Read More »
This is the second look at the guidance given on the new proportionality test by the Court of Appeal in West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWCA Civ 1220. The previous post explored how the Court dealt a fatal blow to the new rule by introducing a test as to whether work was “unavoidable
Proportionality after West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust Read More »
There has now been time to reflect on the Court of Appeal’s proportionality guidance given in the case of West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWCA Civ 1220. And what a sorry mess that guidance was. The first part of the guidance related to the reasonableness and proportionality of the ATE premium. The Court
Proportionality revised by West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust Read More »
The new Guidance Notes on Precedent H have now been published following the update to PD3E para.7.4 (which came into force on 1 October 2019) which now defines budgeted and incurred costs as: “a. Incurred costs are all costs incurred up to and including the date of the first costs management order, unless otherwise ordered.
New Guidance Notes on Precedent H Read More »
I have seen a number of Precedent H costs budgets which include, within the ADR/Settlement phase, the anticipated court fee for the Consent Order recording the settlement agreement. Is this correct? Costs budgets are predicated on the basis that the matter will proceed to a final trial. That is why there is a Trial phase.
What to include in a costs budget Read More »
I’ve uploaded an article on whether the extension of fixed fees may reverse the trend of Costs Lawyers working in-house to the Costs Law Articles Archive, first published in Costs Lawyer magazine.
Will fewer Costs Lawyers work in-house? Read More »