Costs Negotiation for Claimant Solicitor Firms
A bill of costs is an opening position. What a firm recovers is decided after the Points of Dispute arrive: which objections are conceded, which are answered, what is offered and when. We negotiate claimant costs through that stage for the instructing firm, from the Points of Dispute and the paying party’s open offer to an agreed figure.
We prepare the costs documentation and support your team through the process. The instructing solicitor retains conduct of the matter.
Where Negotiation Starts
The paying party has 21 days from service of the notice of commencement to serve Points of Dispute (CPR 47.9(2)). With them comes an open letter stating what sum, if any, it offers in settlement of the total costs claimed (PD 47 para 8.3). A separate Part 36 offer may be made as well, and the two carry different consequences.
The open letter is the most useful document in the pack. Points of Dispute can run to dozens of individual reductions; the open offer says what they mean commercially. So the first question on any file is the gap between the bill and that offer, and which Points account for most of it. If no Points of Dispute are served in time, a default costs certificate may be available under CPR 47.11, so the expiry date matters as much as the content.
How We Negotiate
- Value the dispute before answering it. Rates and grades, time on documents, counsel, experts and disbursements do not carry equal money, and the Reply should follow the money.
- Concede what should be conceded. It narrows the dispute, the court sees it later, and it makes the rest of the Reply credible.
- Reply on principle. A Reply is optional and due within 21 days (CPR 47.13). It is limited to points of principle and concessions; general denials, specific denials and standard-form responses are not allowed (PD 47 para 12.1).
- Make offers that count. The receiving party is generally entitled to the costs of the detailed assessment proceedings (CPR 47.20), but that is a starting point, and Part 36 applies to detailed assessment proceedings with modifications. A well-pitched offer, made early and beaten at assessment, changes who pays for the assessment itself.
- Keep the offers distinct. The open offer and any Part 36 offer are recorded separately, with the amount and date of each, in both directions.
The question behind every step is commercial: what is the realistic recoverable figure, and which disputes stand between the firm and it?
If the Costs Do Not Settle
A request for a detailed assessment hearing must be filed within three months of the expiry of the period for commencing detailed assessment proceedings (CPR 47.14). Where the costs claimed are £75,000 or less, the bill is provisionally assessed (PD 47 para 14.1), and the costs of that provisional assessment are capped at £1,500 plus VAT and court fees (CPR 47.15(5)). That cap is worth having in mind when deciding whether a remaining gap is worth an assessment. The deadlines at every stage are set out in our costs recovery checklist.
We do not provide advocacy. If a bill goes to a hearing, the advocate is a Costs Lawyer or counsel, and we prepare the costs documentation they work from. If you are deciding between the two, see costs draftsman or Costs Lawyer: which you actually need.
Negotiation Across Our Three Practice Areas
The arguments differ by claim type. In housing disrepair costs they turn on surveyor fees, client contact and proportionality; in MoD NIHL costs, on the work the file actually needed after a Matrix settlement; in clinical negligence costs, on experts, counsel and the approved budget. The common reductions are set out for housing disrepair Points of Dispute and for clinical negligence Points of Dispute and Replies.
Who Negotiates
The work stays with the practitioners named on the file. Housing disrepair and MoD NIHL costs are led by Mentor Nika; clinical negligence and budgeting work is subject to senior technical review by Diellza Nika, law costs draftsperson and Managing Director.
We do not publish case results we have not produced. What we offer as evidence is named responsibility for the work and published guidance you can check against the rules yourself.
Fixed Fee Agreed Before Instructions
The fee is fixed and agreed before any work begins. Negotiation to settlement is part of it, alongside the bill and the Points of Dispute and Replies. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, our agreed fee is payable when your firm receives the recovered costs from the paying party.