The Courts’ extended powers to manage costs and the introduction of costs budgeting are now starting to bite hard.
This new process is presently exempt from cases in Commercial and Admiralty Courts and also claims for damages in excess of £2 million in the Chancery Division, TCC and Mercantile Courts. However a Civil Procedure Rules Committee consultation process is already ongoing into proposals to remove those exemptions. Therefore we must all be prepared for costs budgeting.
We have already witnessed Courts refusing to revise costs budgets; budgets being approved for court fees alone due to failure to comply with the rules and practice directions; relief from sanctions being refused in such circumstances and refusals to depart from approved budgets after a trial.
Courts have also allowed successful parties costs in full at the end of a trial without a summary or detailed assessment, simply because they are within the approved budget!
It is therefore vitally important that a costs budget is as accurate and realistic as possible from the beginning.
At Goodwin Malatesta, we recognise the importance of costs budgeting to our clients.
We have the expertise to assist with your costs budgeting needs due to the many years of combined costing experience of our fully qualified Costs Lawyers. We also guarantee a Costs Lawyer will prepare your costs budget; something few other legal costs firms can promise.
By uniting our legal costs know-how with your expertise in civil litigation and knowledge of the issues in your case, we will maximise your clients’ costs savings and recovery.
We provide an extensive service for costs management and budgeting. This includes:
- Preparing costs budgets by assessing the cost of each phase of the case;
- Examining opponents’ costs budgets for agreement or points of objection to be served and filed with the court;
- Advocacy at CMC hearings to maximise your own approved costs budget and minimise your opponents;
- Monitoring accounts data and reporting on any budget revisions;
- Preparing and advising on revisionsMaximising savings and costs recovery on detailed assessment.
The cost of preparing the initial costs budgets must be proportionate and indeed the rules provide that a fee of no more than 1% of the approved budget can be approved.
We have therefore devised a fee structure to prepare the initial costs budget that keeps our fees within the fee cap and also provides you with a fixed price for that work.
Our fees are simply calculated as follows:
- 1% of all fees and disbursements incurred to date that will be examined and broken-down between phases.
- A fixed fee of no more than £250.00 multiplied by the number of days for the trial, for estimating costs going forward.
Not only does this structure provide excellent value but gives you a fixed fee on instruction.
Failure to comply with the costs budgeting regime has already proved extremely costly for the poorly prepared. The potential benefits to the well prepared are enormous!
Please contact us if we can assist with your costs management and budgeting needs.