News in brief - 20.08.2020

The July/August issue of Costs Lawyer is now available here. Topics covered include whether case and costs management hearings should be separated; the reported and unreported rulings of the Senior Costs Judge in Marbrow; termination clauses in damages-based agreements; and costs orders in the employment tribunal. Costs Lawyer Carl Bird has launched a new firm, Agile Costs, which aims to "bring legal costs into the 21st century" by automating the drafting of Precedent H and Precedent S. Mr Bird has worked in legal costs since 2010 and qualified as a Costs Lawyer in 2017, working in-house at Pinsent Masons before leaving to set up Agile. He explained how he has been "exploring technological solutions in legal costs for the past four years" and learnt to code so he could build the system himself. He said: "Two things have struck me as significant in the work I have undertaken: the sheer amount of time costs draftsmen and Costs Lawyers spend in restructuring data when preparing costs pleadings, and how incredibly useful historic costs data could be for the prediction of future costs."