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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Damages based agreements reconsidered
Damages based agreements are one of the damp squibs of the package of reforms introduced by LASPO 2012 on 1st April 2013. They were intended to provide a means of increasing access to justice by providing an another funding option which would provide an alternative to the well established funding arrangement of a conditional fee…
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An equitable solution
More than a decade ago, The Guardian estimated that in 2009 the high street banks and solicitor’s profession charged collectively £1.25 billion a year in fees for dealing with the administration of estates through the grant of probate or letters of administration. Nominating a bank as an executor in a will is a very expensive option, as…
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Disability discrimination and QOCS
The courts, like the Ritz Hotel, are open to all. -Anonymous People who suffer a personal injury in England and Wales and then to seek claim damages for their injury and losses are in a privileged position. They can readily instruct solicitors to prosecute their claim. There is a substantial part of the legal profession…
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Kings in the North
I am pleased to announce that with immediate effect I have joined Kings Chambers in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. Although I am sad to leave Ropewalk Chambers in Nottingham and all my friends there, I am excited to be moving onto a new challenge as part of the common law team at an outstanding set…
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A New Hope
For the first time in 25 years at the Bar, I am on top of my paperwork, and also have time to walk my labrador each day, for miles until she is finally exhausted and I know that she will sleep soundly on her bed at night. These two beneficial changes have arisen from the…
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Claiming enhanced hourly rates
Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. -Proverbs, 9:1 The first point that always arises substantively in a detailed assessment, after a desultory exchange on disclosure (or not) of the receiving party’s retainer is the question of hourly rates. When a costs judge assesses hourly rates on assessment, she does…
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The Expense of Time
In a data vault, in Switizerland, behind multiple fire walls and triple locked end to end user encryption, I keep all my most precious documents. They include the photos I could not bear to lose, the video of my eldest child learning to crawl and my copy of The Expense of Time (4th edition 1992).…
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Life on Mars
Oh, well let’s entertain it, let’s take it out for a prawn cocktail, a steak and a bottle of Liebfraumilch, then let’s kick it into the gutter where it belongs! -Gene Hunt. In between tasks in the evenings, I have been catching up with some TV, including the very entertaining series Life on Mars, which I…