REUTERS | Molly Riley
May 27, 2016

Working with barristers’ clerks in relation to costs

In this blog post, I am going to discuss how barristers’ clerks can assist solicitors with costs management and recovering barristers’ fees, beginning with an outline of a clerk’s role and the clerk/solicitor relationship. If you were at the Harmans Costs Seminar on 5 May 2016, you will have heard me make these points before. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Yves Herman
May 26, 2016

Assignment of CFAs settled… for now

Solicitors holding pre-2013 conditional fee agreements (CFAs) assigned to them by prior firms breathed a sigh of (at least temporary) relief in early May 2016, following the decision of His Honour Judge Graham Wood QC in the County Court appeal in Jones v Spire Healthcare. Briefly put, a personal injury claimant (Ms Jones) entered into a pre-2013 CFA retainer with a firm of solicitors known as Barnetts. Barnetts became insolvent and administrators were appointed. In 2014, those administrators assigned the benefits and obligations of that retainer (among others) for consideration to a new firm known as SGI Legal. Upon successful settlement of Mr Jones’s claim, SGI Legal sought to recover its costs (including success fee) pursuant to the CFA. However, the paying party objected on the grounds that the assignment could never have been valid. It argued that this was a contract of personal service (unassignable following Griffith v Tower Publishing), which did not fall within the exception relating to the assignment of contracts motivated by personal trust and confidence in a particular solicitor who moves from one firm to another (as the prior CFA case of Jenkins v Young Brothers Transport Ltd had allowed). Continue reading →