I write about legal costs, litigation funding and related questions arising in civil litigation. The emphasis is practical: what the authorities mean, how the rules operate and where the real risks lie.
The latest articles appear below. If you are looking for a particular area, the four broad gateways provide a quicker route into the archive.
Costs
Commercial costs, Part 36, QOCS, detailed assessment and related costs issues.
Litigation Funding
Funding agreements, ATE insurance, security for costs and the economics of litigation.
Solicitor-Client & Retainers
Solicitors Act assessments, retainers, CFAs, DBAs, success fees and deductions from damages.
Group & Specialist Litigation
Collective proceedings, group litigation and selected wider developments affecting civil justice.
Recent analysis
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The living legends
Next week, on Tuesday 23rd April 2024, the living legend that is Kevin Latham and I will be giving a Zoom seminar on current issues in clinical negligence costs. As the blurb has it: In this timely seminar, Andrew Hogan and Kevin Latham review current issues in clinical negligence costs, including fixed costs, the increasing trend towards ADR, hourly…
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Our learned friends
One of the more amusing notions in costs, religiously propagated in the comments section of the Law Society’s Gazette is that the costs judges are kinder to counsel, when it comes to assessing their fees, than that of solicitors’ fees. It simply is not so. Rather in many cases, solicitors fees exceed significantly by some…
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That deadly dust
One of the saddest areas of personal injury litigation, is that sub area of work which concerns claims arising from exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring fibrous minerals. Its use dates back thousands of years, with evidence suggesting it was used in ancient Greece and Egypt for wicks in lamps, funeral…
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An Act of Oblivion and Indemnity
The decision of the Supreme Court in R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) (Appellants) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others (Respondents) [2023] UKSC 28 has prompted much litigation, an arbitration, and some degree of angst and soul searching since it was handed down last summer. Now, with surprising speed, the government has…
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St James the Great
Every day in the county court, credit hire claims which are worth more than £10,000 or housing disrepair (housing condition) claims where the value of the repairs exceed £1000 or the damages exceed £1000 are allocated to the Small Claims track. The focus of the decision on allocation is somewhat contradictory: the value of the…
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Bullet points
One of the potentially useful characteristics of ChatGPT is that I can upload document files to it, and ask it to analyse and summarise those files for me. The case of Deutsche Bank v Sebastian Holdings and Vik has been to the Court of Appeal (again) this month, and a copy of the judgment can…
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Chain prompting
Noting that everything will flow from our use of prompts, noting that ChatGPT has been designed to be iterative, refining and improving its answers to the questions that we put to it, we can bring those two concepts together in the technique known as “chain prompting”. Let me explain what I mean by that. In…
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Prompt engineering
ChatGPT speaks English. In fact it speaks many different languages, but it particularly likes English due to its simplicity and quality as a global language. That is fine by me, as I lack the ability to talk to it in Ukrainian. But it speaks a particular kind of English. You give it instructions in text,…