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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Lord Justice Megarry in John v Rees (1970) remembered
“It may be that there are some who would decry the importance of the rules of natural justice. ……those who take this view do not, I think, do themselves justice. As everybody who has anything to do with the law well knows, the path of the law is strewn with examples of open and shut…
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Costs budgeting and satellite litigation
On 28th January 2013, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the case of Sylvia Henry v News Group Newspapers Limited [2013] EWCA Civ 19. A link to the judgment can be found here: http://www.bailii.org/cgibin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/19.html&query=Sylvia+and+Henry&method=boolean The decision is important as it is the first decision of an appellate court on the pressing issue of…
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Whiplash claims and DBAs
We live in interesting times. In April 2013, the biggest shake up to the civil justice system in a generation is due to take place with the implementation of the Jackson reforms and the coming into force of the key provisions of LASPO. In parallel, the shape of the legal services industry is being fundamentally…
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When is a road traffic accident not a road traffic accident ?
Although we are now in the “dog days” of part 45 section II, and the issue of fixed recoverable costs inter partes, interesting points still arise from time to time on the interpretation to be afforded to the rules. In a recent case, I dealt with a dispute arose as to whether the subject matter of…
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BTE, freedom of choice and panel rates
On 12th December 2012, the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the case of Christine Brown-Quinn v Equity Syndicate Management [2012] EWCA 1633, overturning the decision of Burton J, at first instance given a year ago. The case is instructive reading, as it represents a major defeat for the practices of many BTE insurers,…
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Costs budgeting and provisional assessments
On 9th February 2012, Lord Neuberger the Master of the Rolls, gave a lecture, the ninth in the Jackson Implementation Programme, which concluded with this quotation from an article written by Geoffrey Bindman in 1992: ”The secret, perhaps half-perceived at the time, was the open-endedness of litigation. The more work one did, the more one…
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Success fees in disease claims
This article was originally published in September 2012. A sequel dealing with the later High Court decision in Patterson v Ministry of Defence may be published in due course. An ongoing issue in the context of assessment of costs and disease claims is the correct approach to construction of Rule 45.23 of the Civil Procedural…
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Costs, credit hire and success
This post was published as an article in September 2011. There is a legal saying that “hard cases make bad law”. Nowhere is this more apparent at the current time than in the ever growing number of cases in the Court of Appeal which purport to establish principles meant to be acted upon by first…