Civil Costs Assessment Handbook

Peter Burge, 2nd edition: The Law Society; £49.95

This is the book that every costs draftsman wishes his solicitor clients would read. It tells them in clear practical terms what to do from the moment they receive a draft bill from their costs draftsman until they receive payment. Because its focus is narrow it is able to deal in great detail with such matters as the maximising of costs recovery by way of detailed assessment. It is a book for winners – parties who have an order for costs in their favour, the receiving party. It is written from their point of view. It does not cover the obtaining of an order for costs and how the court exercises its discretion to award costs, nor does it even concern itself with the drawing of the bill of costs. It is concerned simply with the process of the detailed and summary assessment of costs and the requisite offers and negotiations to achieve the best outcome. Costs require discipline and the book provides effective systems and techniques backed up by precedent forms, letters, worksheet and a CD-ROM containing the cost rules and Practice Direction, the court forms and orders, draft letters to the court, to the paying party and to the client, Excel worksheets and typical points of disputes and replies, and even a skeleton argument.