All posts by Practical Law Dispute Resolution

REUTERS | Sarah Silbiger
July 4, 2022

Guideline Hourly Rates or are they?

When Guideline Hourly Rates (GHR) came into force, they did so with the directive that they be “used as a starting point for judges carrying out summary assessment of costs” (Civil Justice Council’s Annual Report 2019-2020) and that “these guideline rates are broad approximations to be used only as a starting point for judges carrying out summary assessment.” 

Whilst the notes in the White Book refer to the fact that “a rate in excess of the guideline figures may be appropriate”, these decisions demonstrate a worrying trend that it is becoming increasingly difficult to persuade the courts to depart from the GHR.

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REUTERS | Maxim Shemetov
June 29, 2022

Diluting the qualification in qualified one-way costs shifting

Cast your mind back to the old days, when the world was young (to which Ritchie J drew the legal profession’s attention in Edwards v Slater and Gordon at paragraph 33) and legal aid was available to enable plaintiffs (as claimants then were) to fund personal injury (PI) claims. On a loss, it was generally the case that plaintiffs did not contribute to the successful defendants’ costs and the Legal Aid Fund met their own solicitors’ fees out of public funds. As the world grew older, in 1999, the government passed the Access to Justice Act 1999, which removed legal aid as a means of funding PI claims except in clinical negligence. In its place, conditional fee agreements (CFAs) were permitted which allowed a success fee to be recovered on a win, with adverse costs in a losing case to be met by after the event (ATE) insurance.

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REUTERS | Dylan Martinez
June 22, 2022

Disclosing litigation funding arrangements: a debate worth having

As the global litigation funding industry has grown exponentially over the years, so have the critics, driven and funded by those with most to lose. Unsurprisingly then, various battles have been waged by these critics seeking to undermine the integrity, credibility and viability of litigation funding as a whole.

One such battleground globally has been over the disclosure of funding arrangements. Given champerty and maintenance has always been a fine line that litigation funding has been careful not to cross, it is only natural that some latent concerns of potential conflicts remain, providing fertile soil for a fruitful battle. But, whereas the real issue is one of conflicts and ensuring integrity of the legal process, defendants have attempted to use this guise to gain insight into, and a tactical advantage over, their opponents.

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