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Hello anonymous 01:59pm. I'm Anonymous 01:33pm.

I can help you with the question about reluctance to budgeting, and it has nothing to do with reticence about telling a client or opponent how much profit we expect to make. After all, we are already under an obligation to keep the client updated with estimates of costs, and prior to the introduction of costs budgeting, there was already an obligation to provide opponents with estimates at allocation and listing. Plus, of course, where the opponent is the paying party, the bill would be submitted to them in any event.

No, the reluctance comes from the fact that in complex litigation, it is difficult if not impossible to predict what will need to be spent, because it is difficult if not impossible to foresee what hurdles will be put up by the opponent.

Case in point, I acted for the claimant in a complex brain injury case in which the defendant made a series of eight specific disclosure applications. Each was aggressive, each required the expenditure of several hours work, and each was abandoned by the defendant at the door of court. They were speculatively made, utterly vexatious, wholly unwarranted and in total required the expenditure of about £30,000 in costs. How could I have predicted that before it happened?

Another complaint is that there is no level playing field. I have it on the authority of a very well respected silk who does a mix of claimant and defendant work, that defendant insurers often operate a two tier system whereby their estimates include a set of figures for own costs and disbursements that are significantly lower than the figure they will actually pay for their own costs and disbursements. These tactical, low figures are put in play purely as a device to enable them turn up to a cots budgeting hearing and say 'Look, the claimant says it wants to spend £3,000 on neurological evidence, whereas we can get an expert of like discipline who will charge £750. Reduce the claimant's budget', only then to pay their own expert £3,000.