Today the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the case of Herbert v HH Law Limited.
A copy of the judgment can be downloaded here: Herbert -v- H H Law Ltd (Final).
The case is one of the more significant decisions in the field of solicitor-own client assessments under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974 dealing as it does with the application of the presumptions in rule 46.9 CPR, whether success fees on a solicitor-own client basis need to be charged and justified using the criterion of risk and whether an ATE insurance premium is a solicitor’s disbursement for the purposes of a section 70 assessment.
Such is the importance of the case (and not just because I was junior counsel for the Appellant!) that I shall be considering each of these aspects in the next three posts.