Legal Costs

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on increasing the small claims limit for RTA personal injury claims to £5,000. The theory being that these claims should be straightforward enough for litigations to act in person without the need for legal assistance and, correspondingly, without the need to incur legal fees (win or lose). The Court […]

My diary is already starting to fill up with legal costs conference speaking engagements. First up is the IBC Solicitors’ Costs Conference 2013 on 29th January. I’m due to talk about the latest news on Jackson implementation. I rather suspect this task would be easier if the new rules had all been published, if various

I note the Court of Appeal’s decision in SG v Hewitt [2012] EWCA Civ 1053 has begun to cause problems for the courts trying to determine in what circumstances the normal Part 36 rules should be disapplied. If only someone had been able to predict that this would happen. On an entirely different subject, my

Some time ago specialist costs counsel Mark Friston recommended to me Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software. I recently got around to purchasing a copy and have to admit that for someone such as myself who is, to put it mildly, “challenged” when it comes to touch typing this is a great product. However, a word

Karl Tonks, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, writing in the New law Journal on the proposed reductions to the RTA portal fixed fees: “Lawyers cannot reasonably be expected to run cases at a loss. But if implemented, the only alternative will be to turn claimants away or take legal fees from a

Quick update on the issue of how long it will take before bills of costs stop claiming for work relating to funding in light of Court of Appeal’s judgment, on 12 October 2011, in Motto & Others v Trafigura [2011] EWCA Civ 1150. The answer appears to be in excess of 14 months. I’ll keep

Solicitors, particularly in commercial litigation, will often inform their clients at the outset that it is unlikely there will be full cost recovery if successful and that recovery in the region of 70%-75% might be anticipated. In April 2013 the new Jackson proportionality test will be applied to costs. Where a solicitor estimates that the

The government will today unveil its long-awaited consultation on increasing the small claims limit for personal injury cases from £1,000 to £5,000, a move that would decimate the workload of many law firms.

The Costs Law Articles Archive section of Legal Costs Central has been updated with an interesting article on the importance of getting the retainer right written by Simon Butler and Tom Rainsbury from 9 Gough Square, previously published in Solicitors Journal.