Practical Law

The Court of Appeal’s recent ruling in Harrison v University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust was not so much a gentle nudge to solicitors on the importance of costs budgeting, but a sharp elbow in the ribs.

You are faced with a claim for personal injuries and you make a Part 36 offer with a view to affording costs protection. It transpires that your Part 36 offer is successful and you look to recover your costs. By way of illustration:

A new format for the good old bill of costs is sneaking up on the profession with increasing speed.

We are more than three years into costs management and it is fair to say that lawyers are still a long way from getting fully to grips with the practice.

Any advice given to clients should be tempered, as far as possible, with how that advice may impact on them in the future, as well as with how a judge might view that advice in determining the reasonableness of a decision taken on its basis. To my knowledge, nobody has a crystal ball to see into the future, … Continue reading Mediate or not, that is the question →

Every year the Association of Costs Lawyers undertakes a survey of members. This year we received 126 responses, which amounts to more than a fifth of our membership.