What is a Law Costs Draftsman?

Law Costs Draftsmen / Costs Lawyers are professionals who specialise in dealing with all aspects of the law relating to legal costs. Many specialist Costs Draftsmen provide their services to law firms and Solicitors, and may also be utilised by Litigants in Person.

The experienced Costs Draftsmen at ARC Costs deal with inter-partes costs on a wide range of legal cases such as personal injury, commercial disputes, medical negligence, industrial disease, judicial review, as well as Legal Aid Costs (including High Costs Case Plans) and Court of Protection costs cases and assessments.

Benefits of Using a Law Costs Draftsman Service

Input from a Law Costs Draftsman is not limited to the end of a case, and their expertise is infact required throughout the claim and litigation process. They can provide advice on legal matters with regards to the drafting of compliant Conditional Fee Agreement/retainer, ensuring appropriate calculation of success fees and that your hourly rates are set appropriately. In addition, through litigation a Costs Draftsman assists in the preparing of Costs Budgets (Precedent H) and their negotiation (Precedent R), Statements of Costs for Trial (N260) as well as preparing a detailed Bill of Costs to recover costs from a paying party.

There are many benefits of instructing a Law Costs Draftsman firm to deal with legal costs. Law Costs Draftsmen have a greater breadth of experience in costs, which means that they are essential in maximising your legal costs recovery, and also in ensuring the accuracy of any costs document prepared in complex litigation.

For many law firms, hiring a team of in-house Costs Draftsmen can be expensive, and this also limits analysis of profit recoveries, given that there is no external data to consider. The costs involved in instructing an independent Law Costs Draftsman firm to deal with costs are usually significantly lower, and in effect is costs neutral given that their fees are recoverable in any Costs Budget or Bill of Costs.

There are many instances when Solicitors / fee earners in law firms are snowed under with large amounts of work. Using a Law Costs Draftsman service can be beneficial in taking the pressure of legal costs off the Solicitor. In addition, an external service can provide a useful benchmark against any internal team, to ensure you are recovering the maximum costs in each case.

Many Costs Draftsman firms have strict service level agreements meaning the turnaround times for costs work will be quick. On most occasions, outsourcing costs work to a professional Costs Draftsman service will be much quicker than completing the work in-house.

Why Choose ARC Costs?

ARC Costs is a bespoke team of experienced Law Costs Draftsmen and experts in technology who provide a traditional costing service with a contemporary, digital approach within the legal services profession.

We provide a Costs Draftsman service with over 20 years of experience amongst our team, and focus on the recovery of costs payable by a paying party in any legal matter through the preparation of Costs Budgets (Precedent H), Points of Dispute, Statements of Costs (N260) and preparing Bills of Costs. We also provide costs negotiation and advocacy services for detailed assessment in all legal matters, and assist with the recovery of inter-partes costs in publicly funded matters.

What Makes Us Different?

We are a digital-focused Law Costs Draftsman service, and our skilled costing team can assist anywhere in England and Wales at a competitive cost, in all cases from the County Court to the Supreme Court.

We hold both national and international accounts and are able to provide legal costs drafting services in any legal matter to any practice looking for a quick and client focused costs partner.

We create efficiency throughout the cost drafting process by working digitally. Bundles of files no longer need to be sent, scanned and passed back on, and instead we can work in a pragmatic way, on your local server.

Wherever your location, ARC Costs are the perfect Law Costs Draftsman partner for your law firm.

Our Achievements

Our committed and experienced legal costing team deal with all aspects of legal costs services such as:

• Drafting Bills of Costs: We are proud of the fact that we have an SLA of preparing Bills of Costs in five working days, and have achieved an average recovery of 72% of all Bills produced
• Costs Budgets: An average recovery of 81% of the value of the Costs Budgets drafted is achieved by our team.
• Costs Budget Negotiations: The ARC Costs team have in excess of 20 years’ of cumulative experience in Costs Budget Negotiations.
• CPR 45 Fixed Recoverable Costs: Fixed Recoverable Costs are becoming a more and more common dispute in costs, and we have specialists who deal with these disputes.
• Legal Costs Training: We offer legal costs training to law firms at no charge. As experts in legal costs, we pride ourselves in the results our team achieve.
• Detailed Assessment Proceedings: Our expert costs team make sure that the best outcome is achieved on every case and we have a record as follows with our in-house advocates:

– 90% Success rate of Detailed Assessment Hearings

– 81% Recovery Average on Cost Negotiation Cases taken to Assessment

We also assist in the detailed assessment of a number of CPR 45 Fixed Recoverable Costs personal injury disputes and have been very successful in recovering costs in full, on fixed costs stage and disbursement disputes.

Can the ARC Costs Team Help?

If you are looking for a qualified Costs Draftsman in the United Kingdom, then the ARC Costs team are always happy to help with costs challenges. The team can be contacted via email at info@arccosts.co.uk, or by telephone on 01204 397302. For more information on our services, please visit our services page here or find out about our speciality areas of expertise on our legal costs page.

This page was last updated in June 2023.

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