Legal challenges to solicitors’ bills seem set to increase, says Richard Langley
For the princely sum of £55 it is possible to issue a claim in the Senior Courts Costs Office seeking a detailed assessment of a solicitor’s bill. At this point the parties will be entering into an arcane process last codified by the Solicitors Act 1974. Presumably Parliament knew what it meant when it defined a bill of costs for contentious business as a document that ‘may at the option of the solicitor be either a bill containing detailed items or a gross sum bill’ – but such language is incomprehensible in this day and age without the assistance of a text book or even a specialist costs lawyer.
It is not just because of the language that the statute needs modernising. The legal profession – indeed society in general – has transformed over the past 40 years. Long gone is the traditional relationship of deference between client and professional, to be replaced by a modern business (or consumer) relationship in which the client is both more price savvy and far more willing
