Costs specialist blasts Woolf proposals

(In-House Lawyer Magazine March 1999)

 

 

Plans under the Woolf reforms could lead to a huge hike in legal costs, according to a leading costs expert.

 

James Diamond, managing director of Legal Costs Services, has pointed to a 1 February practice which introduces the concept of costs assessments on “every interlocutory summons in both High Court and County Court in which the duration does not exceed one day”.

 

According to Diamond, this practice direction which comes into effect from 1 March, is a “bombshell” designed to enable judges who have not previously been accustomed to assessing costs to gain some experience in doing so.

 

Diamond believes the amount of costs works will increase between 10 and a 100 fold and that the implications for clients as these costs are passed down will be horrendous.

 

“It really is a simple equation,” said Diamond. If a costs draftsman deals with 3 per cent of cases, the new rules will create work on every case; multiply that by, on average five summons per case – this will equate to 500 pieces of work in relation to preparation of the schedules alone and as the other side or sides will generally prepare schedules, this figure will double.