David Bailey-Vella weighs up WhatsApp, ‘the file’, & the modern realities of costs disclosure
- The Senior Courts Costs Office’s decision in MacInnes v DWF Law LLP underlines that a solicitor’s ‘file’ is defined by what the client has been billed for, not where or how the communication was stored.
Digital communications are inseparable from modern practice. Yet many firms still treat WhatsApp and similar channels as peripheral to the ‘real’ file. The decision of the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO) in MacInnes v DWF Law LLP [2025] EWHC 3252 (SCCO) brings that disconnect into sharp relief.
The claimants applied for a declaration that DWF had breached an unless order requiring a ‘complete digital copy’ of its files relating to billed instructions. Costs Judge Nagalingam agreed: WhatsApp messages that related to charged-for work should have been disclosed, and they were not. The sanction was decisive: DWF was debarred from participating in the substantive detailed assessment (save for limited preliminary issues).
The core issue: what is the ‘file’?
The question before the SCCO was not whether all WhatsApp messages are
