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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Extending QOCS
…the search for truth strains the patience of most people, who would rather believe the first things that come to hand. -Thucidydes For many years I have had an active interest in disability issues and disability discrimination, from the inception of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and then latterly the Equality Act 2010. These days…
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The dog days
This month whilst most of the legal world had relocated to the Mediterranean an interesting decision was handed down on the application of the non-party costs jurisdiction to solicitors and counsel. The case is Willers v Joyce and Nugent exp De Cruz Solicitors and others [2019] EWHC 2183 (Ch) and is worth reading not just…
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Accepting part 36 offers after an assessment has commenced
Occasionally a detailed assessment can go badly wrong-or right-depending on your point of view and one party’s confidence in defeating the other party’s part 36 offer may prove misplaced as the points of dispute fall like dominoes. In such circumstances it can be tempting to accept the part 36 out of time. But is this…
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The Show Must Go On
Today the long outstanding clinical negligence ATE appeals in the Court of Appeal painfully limped over the line, with judgment being handed down in the conjoined appeals of West v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust and Demouilpied v Stockport NHS Foundation Trust [2019] EWCA Civ 1220. Unsurprisingly the Court of Appeal channeled the spirit of Rogers to…
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Half life
It is now more than five years since the inelegantly named Cancellation of Contracts made in a Consumer’s Home or Place of Work etc. Regulations 2008 were repealed, it having been belatedly realised by government, that it was inefficient and unfair, to break a series of contractual butterflies upon the wheel of statutory unenforceability. Yet…
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Costs conferences 2019
Already the autumn and winter schedule of lectures is filling up. I have agreed to speak to the Law Society in Chancery Lane on matters of costs budgeting and costs management at their Commercial Litigation Conference on 15th October 2019. More details and bookings can be made here: https://events.lawsociety.org.uk/ClientApps/Silverbear.Web.EDMS/public/default.aspx?tabId=37&id=2434&orgId=1&guid=400ab2fc-5542-4a16-a55e-b412e2fd5af5 I am also speaking at an…
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The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
“Much better left alone,’ chimed in old Jack Linden sagely, ‘argyfying about politics generally ends up with a bloody row an’ does no good to nobody.” ― Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists July has arrived again, with the hours of light stretching out in long summer evenings and the dawn seeming to arrive with indecent haste.…
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The hard deck
Resembling the quest for the Holy Grail, or a hunt for a unicorn, has been the quixotic search for “good reasons” to depart from a costs budget. Although Delphic pronouncements have been made that “good reasons” will be fact sensitive, or grounded in the circumstances of a particular case, lawyers prefer principles. I have long…