Costs Budget Planner
We have the expertise, experience and the tools to assist you in getting your budget right
Our budget planner includes the following features and benefits:
- Accurately record and display your pre budget work.
- Break down each phase into its constituent elements.
- Walk-thru guidance to ensure accurate completion of each phase.
- Automatic transfer of data to Precedent H.
- Can be tailored to specific departments or field of work.
- Ability to manipulate on screen before the Judge at CMC.
- Built around an excel solution so no need for expensive software/licensing.
- Detailed “manhattan chart” summaries by work type, cost type, phase or fee earner.
Why we created the Budget Planner
To help create a robust and defensible budget
Para 2.3 of Practice Direction 3E states that…
“The court’s approval will relate only to the total figures for each phase of the proceedings, although in the course of its review the court may have regard to the constituent elements of each total figure.”
The importance of being able to demonstrate how the total figure in each phase of your budget has been arrived at cannot be overstated, particularly in substantial and/or complex matters. Our planner will provide the data required in various forms to assist the court in understanding how your budgeted figure has been arrived at.
“…the task of creating a plausible budget is a double act performed by the litigator in collaboration with their costs lawyer.”
Professor Dominic Regan – New Law Journal
To simplify the task of completing Precedent H
There has been considerable criticism of the Precedent H Form. Our planner makes the task of completing this considerably easier. Simply follow the planner through each phase using the guidance and/or our assistance as required and Voilà your Precedent H is ready to print. In addition, you will have instant “manhattan chart” summaries available, providing the ability to instantly analyse expenditure by fee earner, work type, profit costs, disbursements/counsel’s fees or phase.
“Signing off a budget with a statement of truth (PD3E2.2) is a big responsibility for the person in charge of the party’s case. He needs to have the mindset and discipline of a project management architect. He will need to enlist the help of a costs lawyer from the outset in the role a quantity surveyor fulfils in a building project. Certainly that is what Lord Justice Jackson had in mind when he wrote his seminal report.”
HHJ Simon Brown QC – New Law Journal
