Report comment

Please fill in the form to report an unsuitable comment. Please state which comment is of concern and why. It will be sent to our moderator for review.

Comment

Anon 15.16: With reference to your last paragraph:

First: In my experience large organisations are not discouraged from bringing or defending litigation by the costs involved. They know that in practice if they are sucessful in defeating a claim brought by a private person or a small business (a) there is a high likelihood that they will not recover everything that they have to pay their own lawyers (the difference between 'party and party costs' and 'solicitor and own client costs' and (b) they may well not get back much or all of their costs anyway because the other person may not have the resources to pay and even bankrupting them may not get them what it's cost. So I doubt very much that save as between private individuals with limited resources making each party solely responsible for their own costs would have much impact on whether you do or don't enter into litigation.

Second: why would lawyers object? The client has to pay the bill in the first place. If as a lawyer you didn't have after the case is over to engage in arguments with the other party about how much costs you could get back for your client so much the better, frankly. The problem is that the system in the UK has developed in such a way that at common law recovery of costs is seen as part of the damage that the winning party has suffered. If you want to change that you will need legislation. I can't see anyone other than the legal costs industry caring, and they'll still have a business preparing 'solicitor and own client' bills.

Sorry but I think you're barking up the wrong tree with that one.

Your details

Cancel