Legal Costs Blog
Legal Costs Blog
Legal Costs Blog
Fellow Costs Lawyer
The Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) is consulting on creating a new membership category: Fellow Costs Lawyer. I fear there is some muddled thinking behind this. The right to use the term “Costs Lawyer” comes from completing the relevant training and holding a current practising certificate issued by the Costs ...
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Solicitors Remuneration Certificate
I was recently asked to review some invoices a client had received from their solicitors. At the bottom of each invoice the client was advised of their right under “the Solicitors Remuneration Order 1972” to require the solicitors to “obtain a Certificate from the Law Society stating that in their ...
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Cap on success fee in personal injury claims
It has generally been understood that Conditional Fee Agreements in relation to personal injury claims, in proceedings at first instance, must limit the success fee that can be charged to the client to 25% of (a) general damages for pain, suffering, and loss of amenity and (b) damages for pecuniary ...
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Fixed fee transitional provisions for non-personal injury claims
The Civil Procedure Rule Committee’s decision to refuse to admit they made a drafting error in relation to the transitional provisions concerning Fixed Recoverable Costs for non-personal injury claims is regrettable. Not only is it likely to generate unnecessary satellite litigation due to the uncertainty it has created, it is ...
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Departing from fixed recoverable costs
Under the new Fixed Recoverable Costs regime, there are various exceptions where the court may allow an amount greater than the specified fixed costs. In particular: The Court may consider a claim for an amount of costs which is greater than the fixed recoverable costs where there are “exceptional circumstances” ...
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2024 Law Society Model Conditional Fee Agreement
For many years the Law Society provided a model conditional fee agreement for use in personal injury and clinical negligence cases. This was updated from time to time. The last version was updated in 2014 and, even then, appears to have been a temporary job as the header to the ...
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Costs webinar on Kenig v Thomson Snell and Passmore LLP
Costs webinar from Kings Chambers’ Matthew Smith and Paul Hughes discussing how the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Kenig v Thomson Snell and Passmore LLP [2024] EWCA Civ 15 affects the way that solicitors ought to perform retainers dealing with the administration of estates and the likelihood and ...
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Costs of attendance at rehabilitation case management meetings
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Hadley v Przybylo [2024] EWCA Civ 250 is something of a curiosity. It overturned the earlier decision of Master McCloud who had decided, as a matter of principle, a fee earner’s attendance at rehabilitation case management meetings was an irrecoverable cost in the litigation. ...
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I must be hallucinating
In a recent speech, the Master of the Rolls suggested that the day may soon come when lawyers may be negligent if they fail to use generative artificial intelligence. Costs Counsel Andrew Hogan has been writing some interesting blog posts about the use of ChatGPT and shown some impressive looking ...
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Can you enforce an order for an interim costs payment on account?
Where the court orders a payment on account of costs, can that order be enforced? At this stage, the costs themselves have not yet been assessed. All that has been ordered is an interim amount until the actual amount due is determined. The note at 70.1.3 of the White Book ...
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Litigants in person and fixed recoverable costs
CPR 45.4 governs the costs payable to a litigant in person where it is a matter which would otherwise be subject to fixed recoverable costs (i.e. costs under Section VI, Section VII or Section VIII of Part 45). In this situation, costs will be paid according to CPR 46.5 with ...
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Defendant’s fixed costs when Part 36 offer accepted late
I have previously written about the discrepancy between the Fixed Recoverable Costs a claimant and a defendant may recover for the same period. This is as a consequence of a combination of CPR 45.45(1)(a)(iv), CPR 45.50(2)(b)(iv) CPR 45.6(2) and (3). A claimant’s costs are set by reference to the damages ...
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Fixed costs and deemed orders for costs
Acceptance of a Part 36 offer creates a deemed order for costs. Right? Not necessarily. So far as relevant: CPR 44.9 “(1) Subject to paragraph (2), where a right to costs arises under – … (b) rule 36.13(1) or (2) (claimant’s entitlement to costs where a Part 36 offer is ...
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Transitional provisions for fixed costs
The transitional provisions concerning the new fixed costs regime are less than straightforward to follow, not least because of the defective drafting. When struggling to follow something like this, I like to try to visualise it with, if possible, a flowchart. This is what I have attempted here. To be ...
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Personal Injury Costs Webinar 2024
Costs webinar from Kings Chambers’ Andrew Hogan and Craig Ralph discussing current issues in personal injury costs including fixed costs, hourly rates, medical agency fees and developments in QOCS.
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Contracting out of fixed recoverable costs
Are parties free to contract out of Fixed Recoverable Costs (FRC) if a case would otherwise be subject to the regime? As currently drafted, it appears not. CPR 45.1(3) states: “Where— a claim is one to which Section IV, Section VI, Section VII or Section VIII of this Part applies; ...
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Defendants arguing fixed costs do not apply
There was a recent article in the online Costs Lawyer Journal concerning the new Fixed Recoverable Costs regime and how it applies to cases involving non-personal injury claims, specifically those that settle pre-issue but after 1 October 2023. The article records how some defendants are apparently arguing “that, absent an ...
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Fixed fee increase – Why settle now?
A previous post examined the increases to the Fixed Recoverable Costs (FRC) figures which will come into force from 6th April 2024. Although the relevant transitional provisions are clearly confusing, the intention appear to be: Where an order for costs is made before 6th April 2024, the FRC will be ...
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Transitional provisions for increases to Fixed Recoverable Costs
The Fixed Recoverable Costs (FRC) figures will be increased from 6th April 2024 to allow for inflation. The increases are based on the Services Producer Price Index for the period between January 2023 and October 2023. What transitional provisions govern this? Currently, CPR 45.1(8) provides: “A reference in any rule ...
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