The Civil Procedure Rule Committee is pressing ahead with plans to make a new electronic bill of costs compulsory, despite the bill’s unpopularity with solicitors and costs lawyers.
The Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) has called for ‘sufficient time’ to be put aside for judicial training before the new bill becomes compulsory on 1 October.
According to the ACL, the Civil Procedure Rule Committee decided at its May meeting that the rule change should go ahead in the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO), subject to ministerial approval. The changes to the Civil Procedure Rules would be included in the next scheduled update in July.
Lawyers have so far shown resistance to such a move. There was virtually no take-up of the original electronic bill, Precedent AA, after a voluntary pilot began in the SCCO in October 2015 following work done by the Hutton committee. In October 2016, the rule committee made amendments to the bill being used in the pilot, issuing Precedent AB, and allowing users to create their own versions so long as they include certain levels of information. Since last year, the SCCO has not dealt with a single electronic bill, although three have been filed, the ACL says.
ACL vice-chairman, Francis Kendall, said: ‘With such a focus on modernising civil justice, some form of electronic bill of costs is inevitable.
‘Done properly, it can offer significant benefits to parties, judges and lawyers alike. It is obviously a concern that the pilot did not deliver any data, and it may be that—as Lord Justice Jackson himself said last year—making it compulsory is the only way to change practice.
‘But it also means that, initially, everyone will be flying in the dark to some extent and there are bound to be teething problems.’
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