With five costs teams in Birmingham, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Southampton with around 40 costs specialists amassing some 500 years' costs experience, BLM’s costs practice group provide the benefit to our customers of a national presence coupled with strong local knowledge of the individual courts. Since the Jackson reforms were introduced in April 2013, our costs teams have dealt with some £536 million worth of costs claims and currently average around 5,000 instructions a year dealing with costs disputes.
In the last three years, BLM’s costs practice group has saved our paying party customers more than £69 million in costs claimed, with our average saving in excess of 34%. In this series of articles we focus on issues arising when looking after the paying party, ensuring that only the appropriate amount is paid in costs on each and every file.
We regularly encounter issues around the application of Qualified One Way Costs Shifting and the complications around off-setting costs entitlement against costs liability. It should always be remembered that costs belong to the litigant and not the lawyer and if it is justified costs liability on behalf of a partial successful defendant be off-set against costs as well as the claimant’s damages.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with BLM’s Head of Costs, Paul Wainwright, should you wish to discuss how BLM’s costs practice group can save your organisation money spent on legal costs.
