Court Of Appeal Rules That Law Firm’s Invoices Can Be Treated As Statute Bills: #Law #Costs

* Solicitors win on appeal over status of costs
bills

The Court of Appeal has allowed a challenge from a law firm
whose former clients wanted a full assessment of more than £200,000
in billed costs.

Lord Justice Newey overturned a High Court ruling
which had held^[1] that a
statute bill served by a law firm should contain details of
disbursements.

In Slade (t/a Richard Slade and
Company) v Boodia & Anor^[2], the
judge ruled that the fact various bills rendered by the London firm
included only profit costs or disbursements, but not both, did not
prevent them from being interim statute bills.

Newey LJ said it would be impractical to rule otherwise and
would have ‘unsatisfactory implications’. A solicitor would not be
able to raise a statute bill until they had been invoiced for all
disbursements incurred during the relevant period, leaving the
solicitor dependent on the cooperation of third parties.

‘The difficulties would be the greater if work were being
undertaken (say, by counsel or an expert) at the end of a
solicitor’s billing period,’ added the judge. ‘The solicitor would,
presumably, be unable to render a statute bill until he knew the
cost of work done up to midnight on the final day.’

The firm had acted for Mr and Mrs Boodia in connection with a
dispute relating to a right of way. By October 2016, when the
couple terminated the retainer and instructed alternative
solicitors, the firm had delivered 61 invoices, of which 43 were
devoted to profit costs and 18 to disbursements. In total the
clients were billed £208,000 but had withheld payment of the final
four invoices.

The Boodias asked the court for all the bills they had received
to be assessed in accordance with section 70 of the 1974 Solicitors
Act.

Master James, sitting in the Senior Courts Costs Office, had
ruled the invoices were not statute bills and could be assessed,
adding: ‘You cannot in my view have an interim statute bill and
then come back at a later stage and say, ”here is something else to
go into that bill”. It is either a final bill for the period that
it covers or it is not.’

But Newey LJ said it should not be inferred that a statute bill
must always, or even usually, include both profit costs and
disbursements.

He added: ‘Separate billing for profit costs and disbursements
is common with modern, digital billing, and I do not accept that
that need give rise to problems.’

Culled from lawgazette.co.uk

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