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19 November 2018 / Norman Kenyon
Categories: Features , Profession , Costs
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Time to be canny about cash flow

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Norman Kenvyn shares some tips on how to avoid stretched billing timescales

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, with festive food clogging up shop shelves and decorations starting to line the streets across the country.

For law firms, the mince pies and festive lights also herald potential interruptions to cash flow. If a law firm settles a case on 14 December, for example, it's unlikely to see any cash until some way into the new year.

If a law firm settles a case on the 21 December, where does that leave them? It’s unlikely to be able to get its hands on the cash until some way into the new year—all the costs draftsman will be wrapping their presents and hanging their stockings rather than stuck at their desks drawing up a bill of costs. It puts back cash flow calculations by a month, and the money they desperately need to bolster their cash reserves is out of reach.

Cash flow is seemingly an intractable problem for law firms,

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NEWS
Contract damages are usually assessed at the date of breach—but not always. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Gascoigne, knowledge lawyer at LexisNexis, examines the growing body of cases where courts have allowed later events to reshape compensation
The Supreme Court has restored ‘doctrinal coherence’ to unfair prejudice litigation, writes Natalie Quinlivan, partner at Fieldfisher LLP, in this week' NLJ
The High Court’s refusal to recognise a prolific sperm donor as a child’s legal parent has highlighted the risks of informal conception arrangements, according to Liam Hurren, associate at Kingsley Napley, in NLJ this week
The Court of Appeal’s decision in Mazur may have settled questions around litigation supervision, but the profession should not simply ‘move on’, argues Jennifer Coupland, CEO of CILEX, in this week's NLJ
A simple phrase like ‘subject to references’ may not protect employers as much as they think. Writing in NLJ this week, Ian Smith, barrister and emeritus professor of employment law at UEA, analyses recent employment cases showing how conditional job offers can still create binding contracts
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