Membership renewal reminder
The ACL sent out membership renewal notices last week. Members are reminded that payment should be received by 31 December. Any member who has not received their renewal notice should email enquiries@costslawyer.co.uk.
Tickets still available for ACL e-disclosure seminar
The ACL is running a two-hour seminar next week in London on the e-disclosure pilot that is starting in the Business and Property Courts next month.
Where cost budgeting applies, Form H cost budgets in relation to disclosure will still need to be completed in the usual way unless it is not practical to do so, in which case completion of the disclosure section will be postponed until after the case management conference.
In addition, parties will be required to give estimates of the likely costs of disclosure when filing the completed disclosure review document in order that the question of proportionality may be considered at the CMC before an order for disclosure is made.
This highly interactive seminar will enable attendees to examine the pilot and involve a discussion on what this will mean for budgeting and Costs Lawyers’ day-to-day role.
The seminar starts at 10.15am and ends at 12.15pm. Tickets cost £50 + VAT for members, and £75 + VAT for non-members.
To book, click here.
Family judge issues divorce costs warning
Divorcing people cannot behave on the basis that they are bound to be reimbursed for their costs, a leading family law judge has warned.
Mr Justice Francis said that “people who adopt unreasonable positions in litigation cannot simply do so confident that there will be an indemnity for the costs of the litigation behaviour, however unreasonable it may have been”.
He was ruling on the financial provision following a divorce where the assets were £12.3m. He awarded the wife £3.65m, of which £2m of this was for a Duxbury fund – an investment fund providing annual income for the rest of her life. The wife also sought £915,000 in legal costs and to repay a litigation loan.
Francis J said the loan posed a “vexed question”. He acknowledged how difficult both the earlier proceedings must have been for her, but continued: “Against that, people cannot litigate on the basis that they are bound to be reimbursed for their costs. The wife has chosen to instruct one of the highest regarded and consequently one of the most expensive firms of solicitors in the country [London firm Stewarts].
“Whilst I have no doubt that the representation has, at all times, been of the highest quality, no one enters litigation simply expecting a blank cheque. A judge, in a position as I am now in, is facing the invidious position of seeing his or her order undermined by the extent of litigation loan or costs liability.”
If he made no provision, then half of the Duxbury fund would be wiped out and the wife would be left with insufficient money to manage. Balancing this against the wife’s “unreasonable case”, the judge added an extra £400,000 to the lump sum.
“The wife will, therefore, have to find some £500,000 in order to fund that part of the costs which I am not ordering the husband to pay. I recognise that this will deplete her Duxbury fund. I have very carefully considered whether this is fair.
“It might be said that I have assessed her needs at a given figure. If I have done that, then how can I leave her with a lower sum which, by definition, does not meet her needs? This conundrum happens in so many cases… People who adopt unreasonable positions in litigation cannot simply do so confident that there will be an indemnity for the costs of the litigation behaviour, however unreasonable it may have been.”