Robert Males provides some tips on negotiating costs recovery
Time recording is important in two distinct ways. It is, of course, relevant if that is the charging basis upon which work is carried out and in terms of the recovery of costs from another party whether through negotiation and settlement or through assessment by the court that the time spent is a significant factor.
The other relevance to the time spent in dealing with the matter is for the practice to understand what resources are being used to conduct any particular case. It is vital for the good running and management of a solicitor’s practice to understand how long any particular piece of work takes and that information can be used to assess proper workloads, the need for additional members of staff and the correct pricing of particular pieces of work.
Time is not, however, the only basis upon which solicitors are entitled to charge their client; such issues as the importance and complexity of the matter, the difficulty or novelty of questions
