Lisa Pickering v Thomas Mansfield Solicitors Limited

A bill of costs may be a statute bill where, viewed with information already known to the client and accompanying documents such as time sheets or ledgers, it gives sufficient information to permit an informed decision about seeking assessment. Exactness of form is unnecessary.

Guidance in Karatysz about stating interim payments concerned best practice and was obiter on the issue of what constitutes a statute bill. It did not impose an additional legal requirement that every interim payment be capable of precise reconciliation on the face of the bill.

Where assessment is sought more than one month after delivery, the court has a discretion under the Solicitors Act 1974 to impose terms. A substantial interim payment should not ordinarily be required without sufficient confidence that the solicitor will recover materially more than has already been paid.

The claimant sought assessment of four invoices delivered by her former solicitors in connection with several substantial disputes. She principally argued that the invoices were not statute bills because they did not adequately identify or reconcile payments made on account. Alternatively, she sought assessment without a further substantial interim payment.

The defendants contended that the invoices were statute bills, accompanied by relevant time sheets and ledgers, and sought assessment only on condition that approximately £975,000 be paid on account. The court had to determine whether the invoices were statute bills and, if so, whether assessment should be conditional upon a further payment.

1. The invoices were statute bills. A compliant bill must provide sufficient information, taking account of the client’s existing knowledge and accompanying documents, to enable the client to obtain advice and make an informed decision whether to seek assessment. The requirements identified in Ralph Hume Garry v Gwillim were satisfied. The invoices, addenda and time sheets identified the work and gave sufficient information about the sums claimed and interim payments. There was no other material defect in the bills.
2. Karatysz v SGI Legal LLP did not impose a new statutory-bill requirement. That appeal principally concerned the meaning of the amount of the bill for the one-fifth rule in section 70(9). The Master of the Rolls’ comments about the information that properly drawn bills ought to state were expressly obiter and directed to good practice. They did not displace the guidance in Ralph Hume or require reconciliation of every interim payment as a condition of validity.
3. The amount of the bill for the one-fifth rule is the full sum demanded by the bill. Interim payments are payments against that sum and do not reduce the amount of the bill for that purpose. A bill must nevertheless be complete, including where payments made by another party in the litigation have been received by the solicitor.
4. No further interim payment was ordered. Under section 70, the court had discretion to impose terms because the application was made more than one month after delivery. The available material disclosed substantial potential challenges concerning the level of costs, hourly rates, delegation, time spent, disbursements and the circumstances of the underlying litigation. The court lacked sufficient confidence that the defendants would recover appreciably more than had already been paid.
5. The defendants’ security concerns did not justify a conditional payment. The existing undertakings concerning property remained potentially adequate security. The court also declined to treat the claimant’s ability to raise funds, alleged set-off, or preliminary allegations of negligence as sufficient grounds for requiring payment at that stage.

The assessment was therefore permitted without the requested further interim payment.