This article is aimed specifically at costs in contentious cases.
Solicitors usually charge for their time by recording their time in units of 6 minutes so that 1 unit equals 6 minutes, and 10 units is 1 hr, and so on and so forth.
Usually, time will be recorded with a description of that time. That time record should usually be recorded in the form of a letter, a note, a document, a memo, or an internal file note.
How do you know if what your Solicitor is charging you is reasonable?
The truth is that you usually get what you pay for. Cheap may not necessary be good. Expensive, may not necessarily be affordable to you.
Consumer Sovereignty generally dictates what are reasonable costs. You will expect to pay more costs if you retain a Solicitor in the City of London, and the West End, than if you were to retain a Solicitor in Greater London.
The general reason is that fixed costs, and the running costs of a Law firm in central areas are higher than say Greater London.
Accordingly, in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, there is a guide to costs and what are reasonable charges, based on the experience of a Solicitor, the qualification, and location of their offices. Legal Advisers are graded A to D.
Grade A is for a Solicitor of over 10 years post-qualification experience. Grade D is usually for Trainee Solicitors and Legal Clerks.
Alternatively to this, a Solicitor may be a specialist in his/her field, and can dictate a fee over and beyond the notional guideline costs set out in the Civil Procedure Rules 1998, but you pay for that knowledge and experience, and this may have nothing whatsoever to do with where that Lawyer’s offices are based.
David Rosen is a Solicitor-Advocate with higher rights of audience in all proceedings, Partner and head of Litigation at Darlingtons, a member of the London Solicitors Litigation Association, and a visiting Associate Professor of Law at Brunel University.