The Guideline Hourly Rates changed on 1st January 2026. These are set out below. The 2025 and 2024 rates can be found underneath. Guideline hourly rates 2026 (with previous year’s rates in brackets) Grade Fee Earner London 1 London 2…
This section looks at decisions in relation to relief from sanctions and the general principles of CPR 3.9. Often there are links to the decisions themselves, together with links to posts on this blog. CASES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER May 2026…
This webinar provides a practical and detailed examination of claims for care and assistance in personal injury and clinical negligence litigation. It explores the legal principles underpinning such claims while focusing on how they should be properly prepared, evidenced, and…
Here we look at specific issues as to the payment of costs arising from cryptocurrency, Bitcoin in particular. Firstly the costs order made had the effect of ordering a party (who had not been ordered to pay costs) to, in…
The issue of how far a court can take witness statements at face value at an interlocutory hearing is always an interesting one. Similar issues arise in considering the question of the extent to which a court can take into…
There is a lot of controversy at present in relation to recollections about telephone conversations that took place three decades ago. We are staying away from that particular dispute. However it highlights a common issue in litigation. People can have…
We are likely to see much litigation, and quite a few procedural wrangles, arising from Bitcoin and similar “currencies”. Here we have an interesting, and important, question under CPR 40.9. Firstly in relation to whether a party was “directly affected”…
The latest (the 5th) edition of the Guide to Fatal Accidents is now available to pre-order. Details are available here. Fatal accident litigation presents lawyers with legal, evidential and practical problems that are distinct from those encountered in non-fatal…
The Supreme Court announced, on the 21st September 2026, that the Court’s Practice Directions had been amended on the 18th September 2026. To stop anyone being taken by surprise here is a summary of the changes. Those responsible for preparing…
There are much more specialist blogs available for housing lawyers and I’m glad to say that “Nearly Legal” is recommencing next month. The posts on this site concentrate on procedure and costs and the Ten Key Points here reflect that. …
Lord Denning once observed of Cashflow that “It is the very lifeblood of the enterprise”. This remains the case for most modern businesses. In this respect an application for an interim payment can be a powerful tool. Sometimes essential to…
The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court is usually the most genteel of courts particularly when it comes to the treatment of expert evidence. That is one of the reasons this judgment comes as somewhat of a surprise. The strategy adopted in…
Agreeing a trial or application bundle can have consequences that are easy to overlook. Documents in an agreed bundle are usually admissible as evidence of their contents. That does not mean that the parties agree that everything written in them…
The very word “proportionality” still plays a major part in many cost assessments. The Points of Dispute state, often vehemently, that the costs are wholly disproportional. The Points of Reply respond, usually twice as vehemently, that proportionality is not just…
If the parties have agreed to an arbitration clause and one of them issues proceedings then the right to seek a stay of that action can be lost if the defendant takes a “step in the action”. This case considers…
Here we look at difficult conduct issue. This is in the context of applications for judicial review. However some of the problems are universal. What does the lawyer do if there are “red flags” that indicate that the solicitor is…
Some, apparently, minor updates to Practice Directions have a major significance for housing law practitioners in particular. Here we look at the major change, which relates to housing disrepair claims and the minor corrections. KEY PRACTICE POINTS The addition…
This is another case relating to pleading damages. Here the objection was that the judge had awarded the claimants more than they had pleaded. In some circumstances this may have made a difference. On the facts of this case it…
If a party is going to object to their opponents relying on expert evidence this is best done promptly. Leaving it to the appeal stage is dangers – as this case shows. The defendant received a report, commented on the…
Here we look at a post from 2015 about a missing page in a trial bundle. The claimant argued that the missing page meant that damages had been too low. The judge held that that an application the day after…
There is surprisingly little practical guidance for litigators on how to reduce their own client’s liability to pay their opponent’s costs. This webinar, book and toolkit aims to help fill that gap. Starting from the premise that potential liability for…
Here we look at those points and posts of particular interest to those representing a paying party. It is the forerunner to the webinar on the 12th November and the accompanying book “The Paying Party’s Handbook”. At the foot of…
Here we look at a highly unusual allegation. Two of the claimants (the paying parties) and the defendants sought an order making their ATE insurer solely responsible for the costs of the assessment process. This application was supported by “evidence”…
The two posts earlier today on the judgment in Amaal Ventures Ltd v Eros Ltd looked at problems arising because of a failure to plead damages. This is not an new issue. Here we use the CLB archive to provide…
There have been messages this morning from people wondering why they cannot log on to this site when the have a group membership. There has been a simple explanation. On a few occasions groups have taken out new annual subscriptions…
Here we have a claimant who, unsuccessfully, argued that it did not need permission to amend its pleadings to claim damages of £2.569 million. Having lost that argument its fallback position was that the court should grant permission to amend. …
If ever there was a case that would persuade you of the importance of pleadings it is this one. The claimant had succeeded on many issues at a trial. It now wanted to claim £2,569 million in damages. However an…
The previous post in this series looked at cases where the parties had “drifted” into disproportionate conduct and costs. However we should not be naive. Some litigants, and some litigators, will expressly threaten to run up costs as a litigation…
Here we are looking at the posts on witness statements, more particularly those arising from PD57AC. It says a lot that in 2024 the courts were dealing with a submission that these rules were “more honoured in the breach than…
Issues of legal professional privilege have been in the news this week. This makes it an opportune time to revisit those cases where litigants have inadvertently waived privilege by mentioning legal advice in witness statements. “… there is a distinction…
This short series on proportionality is aimed, primarily, at protecting the client and the lawyer. A client may be exposed to excessive costs and the lawyers get blamed for this. There are (it is to be hoped) few cases where…
This series enables us to pick up key topics from this blog over the past 13 years and relate them to specific areas of practice. The aim is to highlight the fact that the site is a useful resource as…
This is an important case about legal professional privilege. The headline result is that the SRA have no power to override such privilege when carrying out an investigation. It also highlights the hurdles any party can face when seeking to…
Yesterday we looked at a judgment in the Court of Appeal where the sum at stake was £25. The court was, shall we say, “sceptical” about whether this litigation was for the benefit of the actual client. For a while…
The judgment given today in the Court of Appeal was the second appeal on the issue. It involved two junior counsel on each side. The sums involved were not large, the Court estimated it to be £25.00. In every other…
In this judgment today the Court of Appeal held that it is not appropriate for a former client to raise Part 18 questions as to whether their former solicitors had received a commission on an ATE policy. This is important…
Last week we looked at (another) case where a claimant had come to grief when it failed to serve a sealed claim form in time. This is an opportune time to remind readers of the basic point that to be…
Last week we looked at a recent judgment which concerned interest on costs. That post also contained a series of checklists relating to interest on costs for the receiving party. I promised corresponding checklists for the paying party. There are…
We are returning to the previous case to look at the judgment in relation to the judge’s comments on the method of assessment. All the parties favoured a summary assessment, the Senior Costs Judge found that this was not appropriate….
We have the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of whether a receiving party needs to provide a breakdown of the costs of a medical report. Fittingly (and unsurprisingly) this judgment is about costs. It is an unusual case in…
Observant readers (and possibly the less observant ones) will have noticed that this week we have been paying homage to the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in the UK. It is fitting then that we end the week with a…
Here we look at a recent decision on interest on costs. It also provides an opportunity to review previous posts on the topic and use them to look at a checklist on these issues for the receiving party. “I was…
Reports relating to requests for further information are relatively rare. In this case the judge considers the defendants’ request in detail. The claimant was not ordered to answer all of the questions raised. However the judgment does illustrate important issues…
This post written a decade ago deals with a recurring point in litigation as we have already seen this week. The tendency of witnesses, and lawyers to allow witnesses, to give “evidence” in witness statements of matters on which they…
We have here another example, in a judgment today, of the difficulties caused by the use of AI. ChatGPT “helpfully” drafted a “skeleton” argument that was 300 pages long (the maximum page length allowed was 20 pages). This was coupled…
Here we have a case where an application to resile from admissions and to amend defences were rejected in clear and categorical terms. To a large extent the change of position of the applicants were based on an argument that…
The previous post considered the nature of a solicitor’s duty in a conveyancing transaction. The judgment considered the nature of the solicitor’s duty to warn of risks. Here we pull together many posts and cases on advising on the risks…
We are looking at a case which explores the limits of a solicitor’s duty of care. It relates to conveyancing, however there are many points of interest to litigators. Firstly in relation to the reason the case failed (the “duty…
Here we look at a case where the judge was extremely blunt in his critique of the way in which both parties had drafted the witness statements. The judgment was from a few years back. However we are looking at…
Here we have a case where the claimant simply failed to serve a sealed claim form in time. Despite being warned of this by the defendant the claimant insisted that service of an unsealed claim form was sufficient. The claimant…
Claims for loss of earnings become particularly difficult when the claimant is not an employee. The court may have to reconstruct the likely progress of a business, professional practice, sporting career or career in the arts. Past income may fluctuate…
The previous post looked at the costs consequences of a claimant pleading a case on a wide basis and then succeeding on the basis of a case that was not specifically pleaded. It is worthwhile looking at the judgment on…
You must be logged in to post a comment.