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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How Jackson will increase costs and boost profitability
The raison d’etre of the package of reforms, known as the Jackson reforms, is to reduced perceived levels of disproportionate costs to more proportionate levels. One of the more interesting questions which will fall to be slowly answered over the coming months, is the extent to which costs might actually increase due to the Law of…
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Conditional fee agreements, retainers and capacity
A problem that arises from time to time, in the context of personal injury litigation, is that an issues arises over the validity of a conditional fee agreement made with a claimant who is a patient. The prudent solicitor, will normally provide that the conditional fee agreement in such a case, is made both with the…
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Part 36 and detailed assessment proceedings
This paper was first delivered at the ACL conference on 10th May 2013. Introduction 1. One of the reforms to the detailed assessment procedure, made by the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2013, was to repeal the familiar provisions relating to offers in rules 47.18 and 47.19, and apply the provisions of part 36 to detailed…
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NIHL and HAVS: Not diseases after all ?
Is it possible to argue, that for the purposes of part 45 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, noise induced hearing loss and hand arm vibration syndrome are not diseases, but rather fall to be considered bodily injuries attracting a lower success fee? Section IV and section V of the relevant rules must be considered…
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Avoiding Qualified One Way Costs Shifting: costs against solicitors
In many ways, the Jackson reforms, represent a return to the halcyon days of the 1990s, when success fees and ATE premiums were not recoverable inter partes, “Friends” appeared to be on endless loop and Mr Blair invited us all to join him in celebrating Cool Britannia. Nowhere is the similarity, so marked, as in…
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No-win-no-fee: Enforceable retainers after 1st April 2013
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 which amends theCourts and Legal Services Act 1990, and the Conditional Fee Agreements Order2013 and the Damages Based Agreements Regulations 2013 have established a fresh set of statutory criteria for “no win-no fee” funding arrangements, which must be satisfied by after 1st April 2013. The…
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Jackson and the Walrus
The following is the text of a lecture drafted by myself and James Wibberley and delivered by us at the Ropewalk Chambers Personal Injury Conference on 8th March 2013. On 1st April 2013, the biggest shakeup in litigation funding in a generation will come into effect. The reforms will change not just the way in which litigants (in…
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Indemnity costs
The article below was first published in March 2011. Does an award of indemnity costs matter? A Regional Costs Judge remarked to the writer many years ago, that he could not see that the basis of an award of costs did, as he would consider the quantum of costs, irrespective of the burden of proof,…