Key recommendations from the Review of Civil Litigation Costs Final Report of Lord Justice Jackson, published 14th January, 2010
A resumé of the key recommendations may be found on page 463 of the 584 page report [click here to view the report in PDF format]. However, here is a selection of the most important ones:
- Success fees and ATE insurance premiums should cease to be recoverable.
- Increase in general damages to compensate.
- Referral fees should be disallowed.
- Qualified one way costs shifting ( i.e. losing claimant will not pay defendant’s costs but losing defendant will pay claimant’s costs). Continue reading ‘Jackson: key recommendations’
The long awaited report by Lord Justice Jackson was published this morning. It is almost 600 pages long with a number of appendices, etc.
The New Law Journal webcast (“the most subscribed legal webcast in history”) is under way as I write, with chairman Dominic Regan offering an interesting foretaste of the “hot tub” concept -the new collective noun for any group of expert witnesses appearing together?
Our thoughts will follow when the report has been digested!
In the meantime here is a link to the Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report
The stock market and some of the respected commentators think the recession is over. Others, including the Bank of England, are not so sure.
You could be forgiven for being confused!!
Recession means different things to different people and businesses are affected in different ways. Interest rates are at an historic low and may remain at this level for some months, possibly years. Some lawyers believe the good times are just around the corner. They point to increased M&A and restructuring activity and some City lawyers point to an increase in litigation instructions. Others admit that life has by no means returned to normal (pre Lehman Brothers/Northern Rock etc). Some areas of activity are at a very low ebb. Unemployment is rising and I do not expect the recession to be truly over until businesses are hiring again and law firms stop deferring training contracts and making lawyers redundant. It is noticeable that some firms are having more than one bite at that particular cherry.
Continue reading ‘No return to the status quo ante?’
I travelled to Birmingham recently to attend one of the road shows hosted by Lord Justice Jackson as part of the consultation exercise following publication of his preliminary report. That exercise is now complete and we await his final report at the end of the year. The event was well attended, attracting about 150 lawyers, civil servants, trade unions and other professionals, with a keynote address by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge. Rupert Jackson’s two assessors, Mike Napier of Irwin Mitchell and Jeremy Morgan also attended.
Speakers included Professor Helen Genn, Anthony Hughes of FOIL, Amanda Stevens (Charles Russell and formerly of APIL), John Ussher of UNITE and Judge Stephen Oliver-Jones QC.
The message which came across loud and clear was that change is on its way and particularly in relation to areas of litigation practice such as disclosure. If lawyers cannot come up with a more efficient and cost effective way of dealing with disclosure, the rules relating to disclosure will have to be changed to make the process less onerous and therefore cheaper to comply with.
All this is of a piece with Mrs Justice Gloster’s view expressed at a recent Commercial Litigators’ Forum meeting that the days of courts filled with lever arch files are over.