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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More QOCS conundrums
Cases about QOCS seem to arrive like buses, in a pack. In court 72 today, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in an appeal I managed to win in front of them on the transitional provisions which apply in relation to QOCS. Although I suspect that the impact of the judgment may affect a limited…
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QOCS conundrums
One of the areas of the LASPO reforms which remains notoriously “rough around the edges”, is the subject matter of QOCS or QUOCS as it is sometimes called. I argued a case in the Court of Appeal earlier this week on one aspect of the reforms. Before Christmas I argued another issue on QOCS in the Nottingham…
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When solicitors and clients fall out
Solicitor and own client assessments under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974 used to be rare beasts. It used to be possible for solicitors to undertake their entire career, without suffering the indignity of a challenge to their fees by their own clients. No more. Across a wide range of work, solicitors are increasingly…
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Draw the blinds on yesterday
Last week Sir Henry Brooke died at the age of 81. I did not know him, and only appeared in front of him on a couple of occasions (dealing with the costs arguments in respect of the appeals in Hollins v Russell [2003] 1 WLR 2487 lingers in my memory) but he was a judge who can…
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The price of freedom
The challenge in R (on the application of UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51 was not primarily predicated on human rights arguments, or rather rights arising under the ECHR as the current vogue in public law challenges is to emphasise the existence of the same rights at common law. Thus a right to a fair trial…
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Saving capitalism
One of the more interesting books that I have read recently has been “Saving Capitalism” by Robert Reich, for the British edition of which, some wag has added a subtitle “For the Many, not the Few.” In his book Mr Reich explains how there is no such thing as a free market, pointing out that markets…
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The North remembers
We are now 2 weeks into the New Year and I have emerged from my burrow, blinking into the light with trips across the country including so far this year Portsmouth, Uxbridge and Middlesbrough. I am also about to embark on a series of speaking engagements principally in the North of England (or at least,…
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Costs, value and “near zero” marginal based charging
Why would a litigation solicitor wish, when making a retainer with a client to charge the client a fixed fee to cover all the work done in respect of the case? The instinctive reaction of most solicitors is to resist the imposition of fixed fees on recoverable costs as a concept; a reaction grounded in…