Legal Costs

I note that the Costs Lawyer Standards Board has put in place cover with LawCare who offer a confidential advisory service to help lawyers cope with problems such as stress and depression. What good timing.

The Government has announced its proposals for the new fee structure for the extended RTA portal, which will now cover RTA claims up to £25,000 and also EL and PL claims. As anticipated/feared this will be dramatically lower than current levels with the fee for RTA cases worth up to £10,000 falling from £1,200 to

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) report into whiplash injuries, subtitled “Myth or Fact?”, reports that 70% of those surveyed who provided a definite answer would not know how much to claim for their whiplash injury. Presumably the other 30% were of the view that they would know the true value. I can only

An issue that has long being bubbling under the surface is the extent to which the Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer’s Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008 apply to solicitors’ conditional fee agreements and whether a failure to contain notice of the claimant’s rights to cancel a CFA renders the agreement

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has recently published a report into whiplash injuries, subtitled “Myth or Fact?”, including details of an independent survey of 4,000 people. APIL advise “Some may find the answers surprising”. The results of the survey show “33 per cent of people reported their symptoms accurately; 47 per cent of

Readers will no doubt have noticed that the inside front cover of the Second Edition of Mark Friston’s Civil Costs: Law and Practice has guideline rates for the last few years. Where rates were not published in any given year, they have been extrapolated from other years. This applies to 2004 and 2011. Unfortunately, the

Costs Practice Direction 6.5A states: “(1) If there is a difference of 20% or more between the base costs claimed by a receiving party on detailed assessment and the costs shown in an estimate of costs filed by that party, the receiving party must provide a statement of the reasons for the difference with his

A new Costs Council was one of the recommendations of Lord Justice Jackson as an independent body to set the guideline hourly rates (GHR) every year, review fixed cost levels on a regular basis, and keep a watching brief on other issues, such as recoverable counsel’s fees and the cost of medical reports. However, in

Legal costs is a funny old game. Fixed success fees for employers’ liability claims were introduced on 1 October 2004. Fixed success fees for employers’ liability disease claims were introduced on 1 October 2005. Recoverability of success fees between the parties will end in April 2013 (although not retrospectively). Only now, with the end in

Earlier in the year specialist costs counsel Andrew Hogan wrote about the various alternative proposals for a new proportionality rule. Commenting on the Longstop Model (i.e. undertaking an assessment applying reasonableness and at the end of the assessment process the judge can stand back and reduce the figure further if the amount appears disproportionate –