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03 February 2021 / Julian Chamberlayne
Issue: 7919 / Categories: Features , Profession , Legal services
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A matter of time: guideline hourly rates

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In the first of three articles, Julian Chamberlayne sets the debate on guideline hourly rates in context & discusses Civil Justice Council recommendations for reform
  • Methodology—the expense of time, charge rates or assessed rates?
  • Data analysis.
  • Status of the report and the revised guide to judges.

The Civil Justice Council (CJC) working party on the Guideline Hourly Rates (GHR) published its hotly anticipated report on 8 January 2021 and opened a consultation period that will run to the end of March 2021 (‘Guideline Hourly Rates: Working Group Report for Consultation’). The report runs to 100 pages including appendices. The appendices include analysis by Professors Fenn and Rickman of the data the CJC gathered. It also includes a draft revised judicial guide to the Summary Assessment of Costs at Appendix J, to update the current version that dates back to 2005. In the introduction to this report, Mr Justice Stewart, who chairs this CJC working group, quoted from and endorsed the continuing relevance of the following

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