Lansdowne Group Limited & Anor v Weightmans LLP

A solicitor may issue interim statute bills during an ongoing retainer only where the retainer clearly confers that contractual right, or where a natural break permits it. Any ambiguity is resolved in favour of the lay client. Each interim statute bill must be complete, self-contained and final for the work it covers.

Repeated overlap, catch-up billing or an agreed retention dependent on future events may show that invoices were not final bills. Payment alone does not establish agreement to interim statute billing. A Chamberlain bill requires an unbroken chain culminating in a final bill; substantial defects or repeated overlaps may prevent such a chain forming.

Weightmans acted for the claimants in complex litigation and issued 44 invoices during the retainer. The claimants paid approximately £2.24 million, while six invoices remained unpaid. After Weightmans obtained default judgment for unpaid fees, the claimants brought Part 8 proceedings concerning the status of the invoices.

The central issue was whether the invoices were interim statute bills under the Solicitors Act 1974, requests for payment on account, or a series culminating in a Chamberlain bill. The court also considered invoices containing overlapping time entries and four invoices subject to a proposed 10 per cent retention.

1. Express contractual right. The retainer documentation had to be read collectively, including the client care letter, terms and conditions, invoices and contemporaneous correspondence. The court found no express right to issue interim statute bills. At best, the wording was ambiguous and therefore had to be resolved in favour of the lay clients.
2. The references to monthly interim billing, work in progress, payments on account and a final bill did not make clear that each invoice was complete and final for the period covered. The use of the expression statutory interim bill did not cure that uncertainty. The court was not prepared to infer statutory status from the absence of express requests for payment on account.
3. Status of individual invoices. An interim statute bill must be final and self-contained. The four retention invoices were potentially adjustable according to the outcome of part of the litigation and therefore could not be final. Multiple invoices contained overlapping periods or repeated time entries. Simply conceding the overlapping sums did not repair the invoices; the proper course was withdrawal, correction and reissue, ordinarily with a credit note or agreement.
4. Payment of invoices was consistent with either interim statute billing or payments on account. It did not establish an express agreement, and no agreement arose by acquiescence or inference from conduct.
5. Chamberlain bill. The invoice described as the final invoice was properly understood as the last invoice intended to be sent, rather than a final bill completing a series. Repeated overlaps and other defects broke the chain. No Chamberlain bill had been created.
6. The court accepted that there was no statutory obligation to explain the detailed consequences of section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974. However, where solicitors voluntarily give guidance about challenging bills, they assume some responsibility for ensuring that it does not mislead clients into losing statutory rights. An observation was made that this might support a special-circumstances argument in an appropriate case.
7. An order would be made under CPR 46.10 for delivery of a bill. Costs were reserved.

First-instance decision in Part 8 proceedings. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.