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I believe there are three main areas of difficulty with contentious costs:
1. The client does not know how much work/ time his or his opponent's solicitor is spending on the job;
2. He believes this does not matter too much as his potent is going to pay them all;
3. There is the absurd scenario that the more time a solicitor spends on a job the more he is paid

My suggestions are that:
1. Costs should not be separately awarded, but be an extra head of damages of up to, say, 10% of the total damages;
2. All clients should have to pay their solicitor in advance and by £1,000 increments so that they know what is being run up in their names;
3. Awards of costs orders should only be made if the costs and other conduct of the litigation has been reasonable on the part of the receiving party, or unreasonable by the payerr

Litigation costs will always be an uneven playing field where the very rich, or those with a legal aid certificate, have a distinct advantage over everyone else. It seems to me that the costly taxation or assessment procedures should be abolished and replaced with a single order of a fixed amount being a percentage of the sum in issue and enforceable as any other head of damages.

There will be plenty of perfectly valid objections to the above, it is only intended to be a starting point for a discussion.