Firms log on to billing databaseCOSTS DRAFTING: Legalex Web site set up as firms cope with post-CPR worldAn Essex law firm has set up a costs drafting Web site with the aim of giving other firms a database of their billing practices, in what appears to be the first serious on-line move in the field.

Legalex, the costs drafting off-shoot of Fisher Jones Greenwood, has launched free, password-protected Web pages as a management tool, allowing individual clients to track their past and present billing patterns.

Solicitors send us their files and we guarantee their return, with a bill attached within seven days, said Legalex managing cost draftsman David Watson.

All the information is then transferred onto a secure Web site, to which only the solicitors firm will have access via a confidential password.

We are trying to bring costs drafting into the 21st century.Costs draftsmen are moving into the virtual world as part of their continuing efforts to cope with changes introduced by the Civil Procedure Rules.

Overall, the market has contracted and will continue to do so, said Andrew Ellis, co-founder of law costs consultants Ellis Grant, which this month also went on-line.

Following the CPR, a lot of discretion in billing was taken out of the equation and thus there was less for cost draftsmen to do.

Now you must really put the accent on quality and detail.

Mr Ellis, who has calculated costs for solicitors working on the Sellafield leukaemia case and National Union of Mineworkers pit closures, said delivering straightforward, easy-to-understand bills is a way to stay ahead of the field.Mr Watson also sees a future in the market, he said: The CPR has made costing a totally separate area of law.

Most solicitors have avoided trying to understand the new guidelines and this has led to an upsurge in the workload for draftsmen.

He added that although Legalex is owned by Fisher Jones Greenwood, the firm has no access to any of the files on the Web site, except its own.

Other costs drafting companies such as Wigg & Co, ARJ Harris, Hopkins Associates and Michael Ryan are all on-line but just have brochure sites.

LINKS www.legalex.co.uk;www.ellisgrant.co.ukAndrew Towler