The Short Answer
A Costs Lawyer is a regulated professional. A costs draftsman is not. The drafting work is frequently identical, and many experienced draftsmen produce better bills than the average; what differs is regulation, reserved rights and who you complain to if something goes wrong.
For most claimant firms the practical question is narrower than the job titles suggest:does this matter need someone to stand up and argue it, or does it need the papers drawn properly and negotiated?
What a Costs Lawyer Is
Costs Lawyers are regulated by the Costs Lawyer Standards Board. An individual becomes an authorised person under the Legal Services Act 2007 once the CLSB issues a practising certificate, and only then may the title be used. It is a protected title, not a description anyone can adopt.
That authorisation carries reserved legal activities:
- rights of audience;
- the right to conduct costs litigation; and
- the administration of oaths.
Costs Lawyers must also complete continuing professional development and carry professional indemnity insurance, and the CLSB can investigate and sanction them. If a Costs Lawyer gets it wrong, there is a regulator to take it to.
What a Costs Draftsman Is
“Costs draftsman” is not a protected title. There is no regulator, no compulsory qualification and no register. The CLSB has no jurisdiction over a costs draftsman, which means there is no professional body to investigate a complaint.
A costs draftsman has no rights of audience of their own. Work is done as support to the instructing solicitor firm, which retains conduct of the matter throughout.
None of that makes the work worse. Costs drafting is a technical discipline learned by doing it, and a specialist who has spent fifteen years on one type of bill will usually see more in a file than a generalist. But it does move the burden of checking onto the firm instructing, because the title alone guarantees nothing.
When the Difference Actually Matters
The distinction bites in one place above all others: advocacy. If someone has to appear at a detailed assessment hearing and argue the bill, that person needs rights of audience — a Costs Lawyer or counsel. A costs draftsman cannot do it, and a provider who suggests otherwise is worth a second look.
Everything short of that is open to either:
- bills of costs and Precedent S electronic bills;
- Precedent H budgets, Precedent R and budget variation;
- Points of Dispute and Replies;
- negotiation of the bill through to settlement;
- N260 statements of costs and interim applications; and
- the papers required for costs-only proceedings.
In practice the large majority of claimant costs work settles by negotiation and never reaches a contested hearing. That is why so many firms use a draftsman for the drawing and the negotiation, and instruct a Costs Lawyer or counsel only for the minority of matters that need an advocate.
What DMD Costs Is, Plainly
DMD Costs is drafting-only support for claimant solicitor firms. We are not a firm of Costs Lawyers and we do not describe ourselves as one. We do not provide advocacy and we do not act for lay clients. Where a matter needs someone to appear at a hearing, that is for a Costs Lawyer or counsel, and we will say so rather than take the file.
What we offer instead is specialist depth in three areas and named responsibility for the work. Every file is handled by a named practitioner rather than a queue, and our bill of costs drafting covers bills and e-Bills, budgeting, Points of Dispute and Replies, and negotiation to settlement.
Questions Worth Asking Any Costs Provider
Because the title tells you so little, these do more work than asking whether someone is a draftsman or a Costs Lawyer:
- Who will actually do the work, and how long have they done this type of costs?
- Who reviews it before it leaves, and are they named?
- Is the fee fixed and agreed before work begins, or does it move?
- Can I read something technical they have written and check it against the rules?
- What happens on this file if it needs an advocate — who does that, and at what cost?
- Do they act for paying parties as well, and is that a conflict on my work?
The fourth is the most useful and the least asked. Published technical writing is checkable in a way that a claim of expertise is not: if a provider says a bill must be drawn a certain way, the rule they rely on either says that or it does not.
How DMD Costs Can Help
We prepare and negotiate claimant costs in housing disrepair, MoD NIHL and clinical negligence. The fee is fixed and agreed before any work begins, and every file is handled by a named practitioner.
If you have a bill to draw, a budget to prepare or Points of Dispute to answer, send us the file and we will confirm the fixed fee before we start.