Fees & Credit Terms

What are the options?

Our fees are recoverable as a disbursement or as an agent.

In the case of;

Smith Graham v Lord Chancellor. 

Smith Graham considered the fees of an enquiry agent (retired police Officer) which were claimed at an enhanced fee earner’s hourly rate rather than at the invoiced amount as a disbursement. LJ Hallett determined that if the work done was appropriate for a fee earner to carry out, then this would be chargeable at an hourly rate.

The benefits to you of instructing us and billing as a disbursement are that the fee will be recoverable regardless of the outcome (subject to your client having ATE insurance or alternative funding arrangements).

An increasing number of Solicitors, rather than incur overheads and liabilities of employing fee earners, use outside agencies to do work for them.The benefits to you of instructing us as an agent are;

• Where the case is successful, our time can be billed as a grade D fee earner and thus the firm can make a profit from outsourcing the work. (Paragraph 4.16 of the Costs Practice Direction provides that agency fees are dealt with on the principle that such charges form part of the principal solicitor’s charges).

• Fees for pagination need not be claimed as a disbursement within a Bill of Costs upon successful conclusion of a claim.