KONNECT - Litigation Futures · Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue London EC2N 2JJ Tel: 0203...

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Transforming the relationship between fee earners & Costs Lawyers POWERED BY K ONNECT Dubai: Designed by Thirst 01256 704600 1, 2 and 4 Priors London Road Bishop’s Stortford Hertfordshire, CM23 5ED Tel: 01279 755552 Fax: 01279 755936 DX: 50405 Bishop’s Stortford Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue London EC2N 2JJ Tel: 0203 215 1011 Fax: 0207 374 6265 DX: 138760 Cheapside 2 218 Strand London WC2R 1AT Tel: 020 7936 3233 DX: 138760 Cheapside 2 Regis House 9, Dane John Works Gordon Road Canterbury Kent, CT1 3PP Tel: 01227 786499 Fax: 01227 786665 DX: 5310 Canterbury The Senate Southernhay Gardens Exeter EX1 1UG Tel: 01392 267267 Fax: 01392 267268 DX: 8351 Exeter 8 Church Street St Austell Cornwall PL25 4AT Tel: 01726 64729 Fax: 01726 69831 DX: 81254 St Austell Office 1305 Fortune Tower Cluster C, Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) PO Box 936366 Dubai United Arab Emirates Tel: +971 4 4539398 Head Office: London: St Austell: Canterbury: Exeter: Disclaimer Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on non-specific issues, Kain Knight cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems it is recommended that professional advice be sought from your normal contact. COSTS LAWYERS – LEADING THE WAY www.kain-knight.co.uk Contact us LHQ is a web-based platform designed to provide an effective way of controlling costs, analysing profitability and managing resources for law firms, barristers and corporations recognising their differing priorities and operating environments. For Law firms LHQ provides a Jackson compliant total budgeting, pricing and resourcing solution for implementation across the whole firm on all budget aspects including current and historic profitability analysis. For corporates LHQ provides an economic methodology to manage their panel law firms and enables effective control of major pieces of litigation. For Barristers LHQ enables Counsel to manage their matters productively and profitably in collaboration with their instructing law firms.

Transcript of KONNECT - Litigation Futures · Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue London EC2N 2JJ Tel: 0203...

Page 1: KONNECT - Litigation Futures · Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue London EC2N 2JJ Tel: 0203 215 1011 Fax: 0207 374 6265 ... and Solicitors A partnership dedicated to you Kain

Transforming the relationship between fee earners & Costs Lawyers

P O W E R E D B Y

KONNECT

Dubai:

Desi

gned

by

Thirs

t 012

56 7

0460

01, 2 and 4 Priors London Road

Bishop’s Stortford

Hertfordshire, CM23 5ED

Tel: 01279 755552

Fax: 01279 755936

DX: 50405 Bishop’s

Stortford

Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue

London

EC2N 2JJ

Tel: 0203 215 1011

Fax: 0207 374 6265

DX: 138760 Cheapside 2

218 Strand London

WC2R 1AT

Tel: 020 7936 3233

DX: 138760 Cheapside 2

Regis House 9, Dane John Works

Gordon Road

Canterbury

Kent, CT1 3PP

Tel: 01227 786499

Fax: 01227 786665

DX: 5310 Canterbury

The Senate Southernhay Gardens

Exeter

EX1 1UG

Tel: 01392 267267

Fax: 01392 267268

DX: 8351 Exeter

8 Church Street St Austell

Cornwall

PL25 4AT

Tel: 01726 64729

Fax: 01726 69831

DX: 81254 St Austell

Office 1305 Fortune Tower Cluster C, Jumeirah Lake

Towers (JLT)

PO Box 936366

Dubai

United Arab Emirates

Tel: +971 4 4539398

Head Office: London: St Austell:Canterbury: Exeter:

Disclaimer

Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on non-specific issues, Kain Knight cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems it is recommended that professional advice be sought from your normal contact. C O S T S L A W Y E R S – L E A D I N G T H E W A Y

www.kain-knight.co.ukContact us

LHQ is a web-based platform designed to provide an effective way of controlling costs, analysing profitability and managing resources for law firms, barristers and corporations recognising their differing priorities and operating environments.

For Law firms LHQ provides a Jackson compliant total budgeting, pricing and resourcing solution for implementation across the whole firm on all budget aspects including current and historic profitability analysis.

For corporates LHQ provides an economic methodology to manage their panel law firms and enables effective control of major pieces of litigation. For Barristers LHQ enables Counsel to manage their matters productively and profitably in collaboration with their instructing law firms.

Page 2: KONNECT - Litigation Futures · Carpenters’ Hall 1 Throgmorton Avenue London EC2N 2JJ Tel: 0203 215 1011 Fax: 0207 374 6265 ... and Solicitors A partnership dedicated to you Kain

106A new format of bill of costs should be devised, which will be more informative and capable of yielding information at different levels of generality.

107Software should be developed which will (a) be used for time recording and capturing relevant information and (b) automatically generate schedules for summary assessment or bills for assessment as and when required. The long term aim must be to harmonise the procedures and systems which will be used for costs budgeting, costs management, summary assessment and detailed assessment.

Review of Civil Litigation Costs: Final Report – Jackson LJ, December 2009

The ever-changing landscapeFinally, all the pieces of the puzzle are in place: Budgeting (April 2013), J-Codes (September 2014) and following years of work and consultation at the most technical level, the new Bill format arrived in October 2015.

For the uninitiated in all things costs, this is a significant change to the way a litigator goes about their daily routine and the most dramatic development in the costs litigation landscape since Michael Kain kick-started the industry back in 1976.

Impact on practice, process & profitsEssentially – should Jackson LJ see the Eureka moment in all that he proposed – the changes mean this: a litigator sets their own budget, records all their recoverable time meticulously using J-codes through their PMS, monitors their time against the budget accordingly and then imports the J-Coded time into the new Bill excel document via XML, et voila – a court accepted Bill of Costs available for summary or detailed assessment at the click of a button. Whilst all the elements are now in place, and have been designed for universal adoption across the industry, there are a few notable problems in the delivery of effective budgeting and the production of the new Bill for a litigator: PMS/software manipulation, training in J-Codes and recoverable inter parties’ costs, the application of any court orders and most importantly the appropriate time and inclination of a busy litigator to adhere with all of the above.

Revolutionising the relationship between Costs Lawyers and Solicitors

A partnership dedicated to youKain Knight, as a market leader, has been working hard to address the changes since they were proposed back in 2013. Budgeting alone redefined the working relationship with our clients, bringing our skills to the beginning of a case rather than at the end. Clearly we had to embrace the proposed new costs landscape and needed to work even more closely with our clientele; all realistic options had to utilise appropriate software by necessity.

LHQ was selected as a partner after much market research. It was initially established as a business for a multi-jurisdictional group action where a panel of 150 law firms’ time records needed to be scrutinised in real time. It has been further developed specifically for law firm use in financial matter management to comply with the Jackson requirements and has future relevant application across the whole law firm. LHQ provides a market leading software solution for budget creation, monitoring, matter pricing and profitability analysis, Precedent H production and, once finalised, the new Bill. LHQ operates in the cloud in real time and is capable of integration with all time recording and PMS systems. This established platform proved to be the most effective partner for Kain Knight’s considerable costs expertise. The Konnect partnership programme was duly realised in the Summer of 2015.

Your in-house revolutionKonnect is a unique offering in the industry in its pairing of legal costs expertise and efficient software. It enables Kain Knight to deliver its services effectively as an in-house resource. We can construct the budget using LHQ real-time across the internet – with Counsel/experts all able to join a conference/telephone conference and see the budget as it is populated.

“ Ultimately Konnect will revolutionise the relationship between fee earners and

Costs Lawyers – its primary aim to remove almost all of the proposed burden from

litigation teams and leave them to do what they do best: litigate.”

Once set Kain Knight can remotely monitor the budget using LHQ to retrieve data from the client’s PMS and then apportion against the budget, therefore giving extra security to the budgeting process. Kain Knight fee earners can monitor budgets under a traffic-light regime, with email alerts should a client’s budget approach its phase total.

Clear, on demand & bespoke to youKain Knight can then discuss options if the level of spend is unanticipated and offer solutions, such as a possible applications to amend. As the J-coded time has been calculated and assigned throughout the life of the case by the Kain Knight file handler, it is possible to produce a court accepted costs update/ schedule or phased Budget update at short notice, or most importantly: as the court requires. Ultimately the new Bill of Costs can then be produced – at a reduced production cost compared with the current Bill – utilising Kain Knight’s expertise and LHQ Software.

For more information about Konnect, please contact:

Nicholas ClarkBusiness Development DirectorKain Knight Carpenters’ Hall,1 Throgmorton Avenue, London, EC2N 2JJ

Tel: 0207 826 9055

[email protected]

Konnect: The key to Precedent H control & profitability

Jackson & Costs: A call to arms