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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the fact that most people are happily going along with their life and won't need to even contemplate instructing a solicitor for advice/litigation until their lovely life is interrupted by some error or omission on the part of another? On that basis, why shouldn't that other be responsible for putting our lovely life back on track as if such error or omission hadn't happened? And, if that be the case, why shouldn't that scallywag be responsible for paying the solicitor for his or her work in making that happen?

I'm aware that there is a possibility of inflating the worth of that work, but in the old days of yore a bill that was slashed down by the judiciary was the final sanction for that transgression. Why can't we prepare a bill, deliver it and then defend the costs claimed? If we can't prove the time taken, the need for same etc, then we don't deserve that cost item, surely? Who would argue with that?

Instead, there is an endless stream of information to be given to clients who never read it and don't care if they do, a costs budget that has to be prepared by consultation with Mystic Meg and which has as much chance of hitting the actual mark as winning the lottery and solicitors so anxious to comply with this and that requirement without taking too much billable time that the actual moving along of a claim takes second place.

Estimates are good, I like estimates. But they are just that. A moving figure as matters develop. Even the most straight forward of cases needs some application of thought on the part of the solicitor dealing with it, and this thought may result in a change of tack and estimate along with it. The current regime doesn't encourage this, it's one size fits none.

I certainly wish I was nearer to retirement...