A costs judge has refused a former client’s plea for a recording of the call where they signed up to instruct a law firm.
In Turner v Coupland Cavendish, Costs Judge Rowley said the call recording remained the solicitors’ property rather than the client’s and did not need to be disclosed.
The court considered six cases as a block where the parties where claimants represented by costs recovery firm JG Solicitors had sought to challenge their former solicitors’ bills. Manchester firm Coupland Cavendish had provided, as requested, a breakdown of costs including a script of the sign-up calls, but there was a subsequent dispute over the call recordings themselves.
Mark Carlisle, representing the claimant in court, said the call itself was a crucial element of the costs and would show whether time recordings were accurate.
Coupland Cavendish countered that call recordings were not stored on the file, there was no allegation that the script was not accurate, and this was merely a ‘fishing expedition’. The firm said the disclosure sought by the claimant was a ‘moving target’ and appeared to amount to all call recordings throughout the case.
Rowley said the firm had provided the solicitors’ file and had confirmed that the entirety of that file has been disclosed when pressed by the claimants. In any event, call recordings would not be on the solicitors file but ‘if anywhere, in some IT backup of presumably thousands of calls taken by the solicitors over time’.
The judge added: ‘The claimant would have to put forward extremely cogent evidence to justify any of the call recordings being searched for and, if found, made available… Why they should be exhumed, should they exist, and be listened to by the solicitors or their costs lawyers in such circumstances, given the expense that would incur, is not readily apparent.’
Rowley said that it would need a higher judicial authority to determine that call recordings should become part of the file of papers that a client is entitled to.
The judge also rejected an application relating to disclosure of any commissions paid to a third party which the firm may not have disclosed. The court heard a discussion about the accusation of it being a fishing expedition, with Carlisle suggesting the claimant was the owner of the lake and the fish but the law firm was a gate-keeper refusing access.
Rowley rejected the argument, adding: ‘The owner of the fishery would be able to put some evidence forward as to the extent of the fish in the lake which he was seeking to catch, but here he has put forward no evidence whatsoever as to why he thinks there may be undeclared commissions etc, let alone evidence that they may exist.’
While the court dismissed the claimant’s applications, the case was a sign that disputes over client-solicitor costs are not going away, despite what had appeared to be a significant blow to the costs recovery industry in the Court of Appeal ruling in Belsner.
Nick McDonnell, director of costs firm Kain Knight, which represented Coupland Cavendish, said the likes of JG Solicitors were ‘still not letting up’, adding: ‘Make sure you have all your ducks in a row retainer-wise. Belsner doesn’t seem to have stopped the attack on solictors’ charges/success fee deductions.’
