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The insider: 3 November 2023

03 November 2023 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 8047 / Categories: Opinion , Profession , Costs
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Fixed costs, forced ADR, and animal exploitation jostle for space with legal superstars, good deeds, and a whiff of hope in this month’s update by Dominic Regan

Judicial review! An injunction! Kidnap Lord Justice Birss! Some desperate measures were mooted to preclude the implementation of Fixed Recoverable Costs on 1 October. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) did not blink and the Intermediate Track is now open for business.

It is inevitable that 107 pages of measures will generate teething problems. Costs management, now an everyday occurrence, endured a grim childhood. Indeed, potential problems within the new measures triggered a further consultation back in July which was astonishing because it was looking at rules that were not even in force! I am certain that we will see tweaks by way of amendments in April 2024. The proposed changes and outcome of the consultation should be published next month. I believe that the concern of clinical negligence lawyers about such cases falling into the bottom rung of the Intermediate Track will be

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
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
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
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
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
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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