NBLO Obtains 22% Reduction of Solicitors’ Bill in Solicitor-Client Costs Dispute

NBLO has obtained a favourable settlement offer on behalf of a defendant individual client in a solicitors’ fees claim arising from a long-running employment dispute. The client’s former solicitors, who had acted on an uncapped hourly rate throughout the Employment Tribunal proceedings, sought payment of a final bill in circumstances where the matter had expanded far beyond what had originally been anticipated and where costs had become disproportionate to the client’s ultimate recovery.

Although the engagement letter entitled the solicitors to remuneration for the work undertaken, NBLO identified a series of procedural and substantive deficiencies which placed the enforceability of the bill in considerable doubt: 

• Failure to comply with statutory delivery requirements: The purported final bill did not satisfy the mandatory criteria in section 69(2)(b) of the Solicitors Act 1974, calling into question whether it constituted a valid “statute bill”.
• Inadequate breakdown to enable informed assessment: The solicitors failed to provide sufficient detail to allow the client to obtain meaningful advice on whether to seek a solicitor-client detailed assessment under section 70 of the Solicitors Act 1974.
• Insufficient costs information during the retainer: There were clear shortcomings in meeting the duty to provide clients with the best possible information about pricing, costs developments and likely overall expenditure, contrary to the SRA Standards and Regulations 2019 (Individuals Code para 8.7; Firms Code para 7.1).
• Premature enforcement steps: Pre-action correspondence was issued without proper regard to the Legal Ombudsman’s guidance cautioning against early or precipitate enforcement action, as set out in the Ombudsman’s View of Good Costs Service (3rd Ed., November 2023).

NBLO was therefore able to demonstrate that, far from enjoying a swift route to judgment, the claimant solicitors faced the real prospect of a contested assessment in the Senior Courts Costs Office together with potential regulatory complaints.

The client received a settlement offer containing a discount of more than 22% of the original bill. 

These cases serve as a sharp cautionary tale for solicitors: the enforceability of any final bill and ability to recover disputed solicitor-client fees is only as strong as the solicitors’ compliance with the Solicitors Act 1974, the SRA Standards and Regulations and best-practice guidance on costs, which are sometimes overlooked in practice or dismissed as administrative steps of minor relevance. 

Kamen Shoylev and Dragos Iordache acted for the defendant.