Jackson’s e-bills become compulsory

Solicitors should expect ‘significant teething problems’ with e-billing, which became compulsory in the county court and Senior Court Costs Office this week, the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) has warned.

However, it also urged solicitors not to ignore or be scared off by the change.

The new rules apply to multi-track claims unless fixed costs or scale costs apply, the receiving party is unrepresented or the court has ordered otherwise. Any work done from 6 April 2018 on must be an electronic bill.

However, there is a get-out clause—either on application by the parties or of its own motion, the court can disapply the requirement for an electronic bill.

ACL chairman Iain Stark said: ‘We are concerned that some judges have yet to receive training and/or the technology to view the bill from the bench, so this could initially be a popular course.

‘The reality is that some firms of solicitors are ready for “E-Day”, and have adopted the J-Codes model of recording work by phase, task and activity. Others still work from paper files. It will be a bumpy ride for them at first.’

ACL council member Claire Green, who has been leading the ACL’s work on the electronic bill, said the new bill would be a work in progress for some time, for judiciary, practitioners and the rule committee alike, and the practice direction was likely to need updating quickly.

‘The new bill will change the whole ethos and environment we’re working in, and we are concerned that too many people seem unaware of what’s coming,’ she said.

Work in progress includes the ACL’s version of the bill, with its technical team currently updating version 16. Green described Precedent S, the form for e-billing, as ‘very complicated’. She said she is working towards ‘getting everyone to use the ACL bill’, although any format that complies with certain requirements is acceptable.

The new bill is one of the last of Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations to be implemented, and the judge himself said recently that it was bound to save time and costs. In his final speech before retiring last month, he said: ‘I predict that in three years from now people will be amazed that we had put up with the old paper-based bill for so long.’