Lord Justice Jackson’s capped costs pilot will bring ‘greater access to justice’, the president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association (LSLA) has said.
The opt-in pilot, proposed this week in Jackson LJ’s Review of Civil Litigation Costs, will apply to business and property disputes worth up to £250,000. It will run for two years in London Mercantile Court and the Mercantile, TCC and Chancery courts in Manchester and Leeds.
The pilot aims to streamline court procedure, lower costs, increase the certainty of costs exposure and speed up resolution of claims. Jackson LJ said the parties would be able to rely on documents contained in the bundle, with no disclosure ordered as a general rule.
Ed Crosse, LSLA president and disputes partner at Simmons & Simmons, said: ‘The capped costs pilot will involve the adoption of established and widely endorsed fast track procedures, which, with robust case management, should provide greater procedural efficiency and certainty to the litigation process.
‘This should, in turn, reduce the work (and associated legal costs) that currently has to be incurred by parties under the existing Civil Procedure Rules. For example, under this voluntary pilot, the presumption that a party will be entitled to wide ranging disclosure, extensive evidence and a lengthy trial is reversed. Instead, parties opting into the scheme can expect to have their cases heard within just eight months of the first case management conference, with limited disclosure and evidence, and with a trial lasting no more than two days.’
Crosse said the LSLA believes the scheme should remain voluntary beyond the duration of the pilot.
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