Newsletter – December 2025

Costs Lawyers, Consumers and Access to Justice: Why our profession must step forward now

The silent crisis in Civil Justice
Across England and Wales, a quiet crisis is unfolding. More and more litigants are walking into the justice system alone, armed with determination perhaps, but rarely with the expertise required to navigate complex costs rules, retainers, and funding arrangements. Meanwhile, Costs Lawyers, regulated specialists with rights of audience, rights to conduct litigation, and deep expertise in the fairness of legal costs, remain under-utilised, misunderstood, or simply unknown to the very people who need us most. If access to justice begins with access to fair costs, then the current situation demands urgent professional intervention.

Costs Lawyers must now take a proactive, visible, and essential role by offering direct support to litigants in person.

Not out of charity. Not for prestige. But because we are uniquely qualified, and regulated, to protect consumers at their most vulnerable.

Our Role: Essential yet hidden
Despite being integral to the legal ecosystem, Costs Lawyers often remain invisible to the public. In an era of fixed recoverable costs, squeezed margins, and digital justice, the risks to unrepresented consumers are higher than ever.

• They need clarity
• They need transparency
• They need specialist advice from a fully regulated legal professional – a Costs Lawyer.

Yet many do not know they can instruct us directly.

On the front line: Protecting consumers from harm
Costs Lawyers are trained to safeguard fairness, ensure proportionality, and protect clients from unjustified financial burden by:

• Protecting vulnerable litigants
• Preventing unfair or unlawful costs demands
• Ensuring ethical, transparent communication
• Restoring balance in a system tilted against the unrepresented.

CASE STUDY: A mother sued for seeking fairness
A mother acting as Litigation Friend for her injured child, faced deductions including:

• a 100% success fee (25% of the child’s damages)
• a £1,560 ATE premium.

A judge refused to approve the deductions at the Infant Approval Hearing as he did not consider the risks in the case justified the success fee or the level of ATE cover. In response the firm sued the mother personally for £5,000, on a case worth only £14,250. This is the system at its most unforgiving: a parent seeking justice for a child is dragged into litigation she never anticipated, who herself was an extremely vulnerable customer. Through engaging specialist costs advice the law firm withdrew their claim.

This is not unusual, this is just one of many examples where consumers who often do not understand and because they have not had access to specialists cost advice rarely challenge their legal charges/deductions from damages.

An Ethical Compass: Why our involvement matters
Consider the obligations on a solicitor to obtain informed consent, and yet rarely do solicitors consider their individual client’s requirements/needs. What of the client for example living with dyslexia, who are often overwhelmed by dense legal paperwork, but they sign because they are embarrassed to ask for clarification and they simply sign.

But solicitors are required to provide information in a way clients understand. When they fail, costs may not be recoverable. When clients fail to understand, their lives can be irrevocably affected. This is exactly where Costs Lawyers can, and must, step in.

The future needs us: Why we must take direct instructions
The civil justice landscape is evolving rapidly. Digitisation, cost controls, and the rise of self-representation have created urgent need, but also opportunity.

Now is the time for Costs Lawyers to step forward and say:
‘I can help. You can instruct me directly.’

Why? Because:

• We are independently regulated
• We have rights of audience and are authorised to conduct litigation in Costs matters
• We specialise in an area where consumers are most vulnerable
• We can prevent harm, not just remedy it afterwards
• We are the best-positioned professionals to ensure fairness in costs.

Taking direct instructions is not a sideline. It is an essential component of our professional identity.

A call to arms: Our profession’s moment
Let us be clear, Litigants in Person are not “low-value clients.” They are people, parents, daughters, workers, carers, often standing alone against powerful institutions, sophisticated legal teams, and complex funding arrangements. They deserve expert protection. And we, as Costs Lawyers, are uniquely capable of offering it.

So here is the call to arms:

• Step into the justice gap with confidence
• Make your services visible and accessible to consumers
• Normalise direct instructions as core professional practice
• Champion transparent communication and ethical costs advice
• Collaborate with regulators to highlight and prevent systemic costs injustice
• Own your role as the specialist who ensures fairness in the legal system.

Access to justice is not achieved through grand reform.

It is achieved one consumer at a time – when a Costs Lawyer chooses to stand beside them.

Victoria Morrison-Hughes
Managing Director, Integral Legal Costs and Vice Chair of the Association of Costs Lawyers