Charge Rates PDF Print E-mail

The Courts Service publish guideline rates for Fee Earners. It is made clear from the preamble that the rates are broad approximations only. There are four grades of Fee Earner promulgated in any of the lists of court rates.



The four grades are:



A) Solicitors with over eight years post qualification experience including at least eight years litigation experience thereto.


B) Solicitors and Legal Executives with over four years post qualification experience including at least four years litigation experience.


C) Other Solicitors and Legal Executive Fee Earners with equivalent experience.


D) Trainee Solicitors, Legal Executives and other fee earners.



There is a definition of Legal Executive (a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives). Those who are not Fellows who are not entitled to call themselves Legal Executives and in principle therefore not entitled to the same hourly rate as a Legal Executive.



Please Note:






































Whilst these are merely guidelines, Courts often take some persuading to depart from those rates.
Normally the Claimant’s local court rate (not the Solicitor’s Firm’s local court rate) which will be allowed.
Defendant Solicitors will always make their own enquiry of whom undertakes the work on a file.
We will always put such rates into the narrative of the bill.
Setting up your W.I.P and the correct hourly rate saves problems later.
Similarly realistic success fee levels based on proper risk assessment and
knowledge of case law and allowances will minimise shortfall of W.I.P and expectations.
Legal aid rates are now different tranches (see under Legal Aid).




Charge Rates



2010 and ongoing into 2011 the rates have been changed to present a range of rates following the format of the guide to the summary assessment of costs. These ranges go some way towards reflecting the wide range of work types that are transacted in these areas:

















































Band A

Band B

Band C

Band D
London 1

409

296


 226 138
London 2 317

242


 196 126
London 3 (229 - 267) (172 - 229) 165 121
National 1 217 192 161 118
National 2 201 177 146 111


No guideline rates are published for 2010. This is attributable to the Jackson report proposals.









































BAND 1

A

B

C

D
2009

213

189


 158 116
2008 203

180


 151 110
2007 195 173 145 106
2005/6 184 163 137 100










































BAND 2

A

B

C

D
2009

198

174


 144 109
2008 191

168


 139 105
2007 183 161 133 101*
2005/6 173 152 126 195

* Includes Band 3 from 2009





From 2009 amalgamated with Band 2


































BAND 3

A

B

C

D
2008 174

156


 133 99
2007 167 150 128 95
2005/6 158 142 121 90