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
-
Sunrise in the valley
Thursday has arrived. Tomorrow I am attending the Association of Costs Lawyers Conference in London, where I will be speaking on the vexed topic of Non Party Costs Orders (NPCOs). There is an inexorable law of lecturing on legal topics, that as soon as you have handed in your slides and paper, some important cases…
-
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Autumn is well underway. I took most of the summer off this year, after the horrors of last summer and returned last month from Rhodes and before that Portugal, feeling refreshed and ready for the challenge of a new legal year. Soon the clocks will change, and we shall face the long descent into the…
-
The Convoy
Sheriff Wallace: I am the law. Don’t you understand, I represent the law. Rubber Duck: Well piss on ya, and piss on your law. One of the more surprising decisions of the Supreme Court this year was the recent challenge to litigation funding agreements in the case of R on the application of PACCAR Inc…
-
Costs Wars!
Costs Wars! In 2017, a sinister figure arose from the Dark Side of the Force, with a twisted plan to introduce a scheme of Fixed Recoverable Costs, which if enacted would bring about the destruction of the legal profession, and bring chaos and confusion across the galaxy. Now his evil plan is about to reach…
-
ADR and family cases
Already the year is moving towards its end. I have returned from a lengthy summer break and find that autumn is upon us, as is the implementation of fixed recoverable costs (FRC) of which more, much more, shortly. But a lot has happened this year already in the wider field of costs and litigation funding.…
-
The uses of adversity
So Trinity Term draws to an end and the Long Vacation beckons. A very long one for me, as I shall be gone for most of the next two months. This time last year, I was contemplating surgery, and then had two months off work recuperating from my wounds: being deprived in consequence of a…
-
Costs and group litigation-The video
Last week I was in the Court of Appeal, and then immediately laid flat on my back with a virulent bout of food poisoning, which has lasted 3 days and is only now subsiding. There is a lot of catching up to do. The week before last, the postponed seminar Costs and Group Litigation with…
-
Costs and group litigation
On 15th June 2023 Erica Bedford and I will be giving a talk on costs and group litigation. As the blurb has it: In this timely seminar, Andrew Hogan and Erica Bedford consider issues of costs and litigation funding, as they apply to class actions, group litigation and representative actions including retainers, litigation funding, costs budgeting and capping, costs…