A short post to remind our contacts that the small claims limit for non RTA Personal Injury Claims will rise to £1500 on 6th April 2022. This seems to have crept up on many while the profession has been focussed on the far more dramatic whiplash ‘reforms’. This increase is broadly in line with inflation.…
Last week saw the latest instalment in the ongoing saga concerning deduction from damages in successful cases, particularly routine RTA cases. This was the judgment in SGI Legal LLP v Karatysz [2021] EWHC 1608 (QB). The facts are familiar to anyone who has followed the story. A straightforward RTA claim settled for £1250. The solicitors…
There is lots of talk about Damages Based Agreements (DBAs) especially as the right to recover legal costs in many RTA cases is removed after the end of May 2021. One option is for firms to act on the basis that they will charge a percentage of the damages recovered. Anyone who has ever followed…
Most firms do not need us to tell them that the world of whiplash claims will change for all time at the end of May 2020. The new rules flow from the changes set out in the Civil Liability Act 2018. As far as costs are concerned the major changes concern the Small claims Track.…
Qualified One Way Costs Shifting was introduced as part of the civil procedure reforms in 2013. It is known, not necessarily with affection, as QOCS. The idea came from the Jackson reforms. It was effectively a trade-off. Insurers said that they would prefer to waive any claim for costs in return for not having to…
The recent Court of Appeal judgment in Zuberi v Lexlaw Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 16 has gone some way to clarifying the rules relating to Damages Based Agreements (DBAs). It is fair to say that there has been an extremely limited uptake of DBAs as a litigation funding option since the current rules were introduced…
The recent case of JMH v CFH and SAP revisits the issue of recovery of costs where a solicitor acts for themselves through their own firm. The question goes back as far as London Scottish Benefit Society v Chorley [1884] 13 QBD 872 in which solicitors acted for themselves. The Court of Appeal held that…
This High Court judgment from 16th October 2016 has wide reacting implications for solicitors acting for victims of straightforward road traffic accidents. Since 2013 Solicitors have no longer been able to claim success fees from the other side. These fees and other non-recoverable items have been charged on a solicitor/client basis and have been deducted…
Firms need to be aware of the new rules of costs budgeting that have come into effect from 1st October 2020. The revised Rule 3.15A says – 3.15A.—(1) A party (“the revising party”) must revise its budgeted costs upwards or downwards if significant developments in the litigation warrant such revisions. (2) Any budgets revised in…
This is the next post in our series covering success fees and how firms can charge realistic amounts for their work and avoid the ever growing ‘check my legal fees’ industry. In the last blog we went back to the very basics of what success fees are. In this post we are looking at the…