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9.24,

You will no doubt be aware of the practice of some institutional defendants who take an imaginative approach to costs budgeting. They will present budgets which quantify expert's disbursements at a level that bears no relation to the sums that are actually paid. The effect is to present the misleading impression of reasonableness, while at the same time being able to attack and reduce the figures being advanced by the claimant. The silk who explained this to me was not able to say whether the practice extends to solicitor's costs as well.

I've seen three EL trials collapse when counsel drew from a defendant witness an admission that documents (in one case equipment inspection records and in the other staff two training records) had been forged. I've sat in court and listened to a senior barrister apologise to the court and to me on behalf of a leading insurer who had written a post-dated letter with the aim of avoiding a costs order in a PAD application.

Having worked both sides of the fence for more than 20 years, I would say that there are shocking abuses on both sides of the fence, and that there always have been. The one and only difference is that only one side of the fence was able to fund a well-orchestrated PR and lobbying campaign over several decades which led to the false impression that one side is the paragon of righteousness, whereas the other side is a squalid pit of vipers.

Should it assist in deciding on whether and how to downvote me on partisan grounds, I am currently a defendant man and proudly so.