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What seems to have been overlooked entirely is that this firm attempted to claim well over a quarter of a million quid in costs for a relatively simple claim - a claim that was admitted by the defendant at at early stage, and which settled for a mere £20k.

This is the stuff of lunacy. It's all very well you solicitors moaning about poor claimants being denied justice because a court isn't prepared to let you charge well over 10 times the compensation received for your client. What about the all too common situation when the boot's on the other foot, where some poor guy is being threatened with a lawsuit and hundreds of thousands in costs by some greedy law firm? I don't hear you complaining quite so loudly about that.

It is frankly disgraceful that the claimant's solicitors should even be able to contemplate charging what they wanted. Even the £85k they ended up with is an absurd amount to normal people.

It's about time that you lawyers realised that the prime function of the legal system is not to provide your new Porsches and Mercs. The sooner some serious discipline is applied to costs, as happened in this case, the better off we will all be, even if you do have to keep your car another year or two or take Henry and Henrietta out of boarding,