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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Varying ATE premiums and LASPO
One of the mysteries of the last two years, has been the absence of challenges by paying parties to the recovery of staged ATE premiums incurred after 1st April 2013 by purported variations of a contract of ATE insurance after that date which significantly increase the premium claimed to be recoverable. Section 46 of LASPO 2012…
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Conditional fee agreements and liens
Some years ago, at a solicitor-own client detailed assessment, I was told by my professional client that her policy was to obtain 75% of her fees on account and to regularly bill her client on an interim basis, to ensure that never more than 25% of her fees were outstanding. As she remarked to me at the…
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Contemplating 2015
This year has been an exceptionally busy one in the field of costs and it is with a degree of relief, that one looks forward to 19th December, and two weeks of turkey, presents and snoozing peacefully by the fire. However 2015 will soon be with us. What issues are likely to arise during the…
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Access to justice and the funding gap
In a mature legal system, with a complex body of law, I would suggest that access to justice is to all intents and purposes largely dependent on the ability of a litigant to source and fund appropriate professional advice and representation. Anyone who has acted as an advocate in court knows that there few more painful things to watch than a litigant in person,…
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Admissions and the RTA Protocol
This week I had cause to look at the Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents (2nd edition). What a curious set of provisions it is. Starting with the most obvious point, claims worth up to £25,000 would not in the natural and ordinary meaning of the words, justify the descriptor “low value”. The…
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Privilege, detailed assessments and private hearings
The case of Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited v Dechert LLP [2014] EWHC 3389 (Ch) a decision of Mr Justice Roth is a useful illustration of how costs litigation sometimes throws up issues which have a significance far and beyond questions of time and rate. Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited (ENRC) was subject to…
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Costs and the administration of estates
Some years ago, The Guardian estimated that as at 2009 the high street banks and solicitors 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. Probate is the term applied to the process of dealing with someone’s property after…
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Costs and NIHL
Recent pronouncements by the ABI have challenged the amount of costs that insurers are paying to solicitors firms who represent claimants suffering from NIHL/tinnitus. The view expressed by the ABI is that insurers on average are paying £3 in legal costs for every £1 that they pay in compensation to the afflicted person. These statements should be…