Deadline for Costs Survey is 29 November
Law firms are urgently requested to respond to the Costs Survey, which will inform recommendations on new guideline hourly rates (GHR) for fee earners.
The Civil Justice Council (CJC) survey must be completed by Friday 29 November. All responses will be treated in strict confidence and data identifying firms or practitioners will not be shared or published.
It is available here.
Mr Justice Foskett, chair of the CJC costs committee, says: “I urge practices and practitioners to take the time to complete the survey. All firms around the country have a direct stake in this issue—the GHR are widely used as a reference point for the recoverability of fees charged for litigation work and as they have not been updated since 2010 it is important that we build an accurate and comprehensive evidence base on which to make our recommendations.
“We need to hear from claimant and defendant firms in personal injury work, from large practices to sole practitioner practices, from practices engaged in commercial litigation of whatever size, and from inner city locations to rural areas across the whole country.
"Only by taking part will we be able to ensure that our recommendations reflect your firm’s position and we want to build as complete a picture of the market as we can. It is not our role to favour any one sector or region over another, but we do need responses from all areas of litigation practice throughout the country to ensure that a properly balanced set of recommendations can be made.”
