REUTERS | Jonathan Bachman

Assuming that from now on you will always have to budget your costs? Maybe, but not necessarily…

Introduction

Generally speaking, we lawyers dislike procedural change. While we may well understand that a particular change is necessary and we will certainly recognise that we need to adapt to it when it comes, such changes nonetheless tend to make us feel ignorant and highly uncomfortable. We have to treat any new procedural regime as a known unknown, which presents pitfalls for the unwary, at least until we become familiar with it. And in the meantime, a culture of half-knowledge develops, an uncertain and dangerous combination of a little learning, anecdote, and false assumptions. This very often leads to negative over-simplification. Continue reading

REUTERS | Mike Blake

It has been some time since the electronic bill of costs has been compulsory and those that have been prepared this way are beginning to surface at court. Although I have not personally had the pleasure of testing one yet, I did have an interesting opening point in Oxford County Court recently and I have heard many stories from costs lawyers, costs counsel and the judiciary. Continue reading

REUTERS | Hannah McKay

The word “inquest” carries with its overtones of sadness. Before you can have an inquest, there must be a death, so the work of the coroner in investigating what has caused it will inevitably bring tears to the eyes of relatives and to those who have survived or witnessed terrible events in which others have died. Prominent and very much in the public eye at the moment has been the London Bridge inquest. It will be recalled that this inquest into the eight deaths following the terrorist attack close to London Bridge on 3 June 2017 lasted seven weeks and resulted in findings of unlawful killing by the Chief Coroner on 29 January 2019. Continue reading