Electronic billing in difficulty

Costs lawyers have given a thumbs down to the new electronic bill of costs, Precedent AA and its successor Precedent AB, and launched a rival version of their own.

The Senior Courts Costs Office began piloting Precedent AA in October 2015, but the pilot suffered from a low take-up rate. The Civil Procedure Rule Committee then made amendments to the bill, issuing a new version, Precedent AB, which they hope to make mandatory from October 2017.

However, only nine per cent of 117 Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) members surveyed said they were getting used to the new bill. Half of the lawyers thought the new format was not needed, with 28% saying it made matters worse.

Iain Stark, chairman of the ACL, which is launching its own version of the bill, said: “The ACL bill is intended to be a more workable solution for a claim for costs.

“It is intentionally far less rigid than Precedent AB. For some members of the judiciary, costs lawyers and draftsmen, the ACL bill will represent their introduction to the more advanced features of Excel. With such a focus on modernising civil justice, some form of electronic bill of costs is inevitable.”