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The insider: 3 February 2023

03 February 2023 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 8011 / Categories: Opinion , Costs , Expert Witness , Procedure & practice
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If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all: Dominic Regan covers shocks & surprises when the bill comes, & underlines the importance of following the rules

‘A customer should never be surprised by the bill he or she receives from a lawyer.’ The more I reflected upon those 16 words found on p5 of the guide to charging published by the Legal Ombudsman, the more I thought that it captured the essence of costs law. True, it comes in at 3,000 pages less than the imminent new 4th edition of the magisterial Friston on Costs. However, so many recent cases concern surprises (shocks) when a bill is levied. I suggest that every fee-earner in the profession should learn that mantra and adhere to it.

Our distinguished readership includes Simon Williams, legal ombudsman, who got in touch after my column reflecting on the Belsner saga (‘The insider’, 172 NLJ 8004, p8). He told me that there has always been a steady stream of complaints

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mourant—Stephen Alexander

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NEWS
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
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