Roles may be limited initially to the county court and lower tribunals, as was the case with CILEX lawyers. This would exclude costs lawyers from the High Court and therefore the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO), ACL chair Jack Ridgway said. He urged the Ministry of Justice to ‘see sense in carving out a specific exemption allowing costs lawyers to sit in the SCCO’.
Ridgway also called for action to tackle unregulated costs draftsmen, in the wake of Kapoor v Johal [2024] EWHC 2853 (SCCO), where costs judge Jennifer James reduced a £260,000 bill to zero. In her judgment, Judge James lamented the fact she was unable to report the costs draftsman involved because he was unregulated.
‘This is an unacceptable and unnecessary gap in regulation, and I urge the Legal Services Board and Ministry of Justice to address it,’ Ridgway said.
Turning to costs developments this year, Ridgway warned practitioners to prepare now for the start of the simplified budgeting pilots in April, which ‘will mark a new era in ensuring the process is proportionate to the type of litigation involved’. The pilots will cover certain business and property cases and cases valued below £1m.
Ridgway anticipates the announcement of a review into the costs provisions of the Solicitors Act 1974, which is currently being looked at by a Civil Justice Council working party. However, he expressed doubt there would be time for legislation in this Parliament since ‘the Act needs a full re-write with its underlying principles also considered’.
He also predicts a court decision resolving a current gap in the rules about what costs apply where a claim valued up to £100,000 settles prior to allocation.
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