Following the Court of Appeal’s ruling in the Mazur case, we have reviewed our Guidance Note for Costs Law Firms and our Guidance Note on Reserved Legal Activities to introduce greater clarity regarding delegation of work in support of reserved legal activity. Please read this to ensure you understand what is expected of you.

Changes to Guidance Note for Costs Law Firms

Changes have been made to the following sections:

• Paragraph 13 (updating the guidance to reflect the ruling in Mazur which says unauthorised persons can sign court documents if appropriately supervised),
• Paragraph 21, to reinforce that ‘litigants in person’ cannot delegate their right to conduct litigation, and
• Paragraph 40, to make it clear that the CLSB and/or LeO may have jurisdiction over a complaint arising from the behaviour of an unauthorised individual working with/for the Costs Lawyer.

Changes to Guidance Note on Reserved Legal Activity Rights

These are more minor as Costs Lawyers already have the right to conduct litigation.

Changes have been made to the following sections:

• Paragraph 19, where we reference a helpful explanation of what “in chambers” means from Mazur,
• Paragraph 22, where we bring in yet more clarity from the Court of Appeal’s ruling in Mazur about matters it considered uncontentious when defining what is not the conduct of litigation, and
• Paragraphs 24 and 25, where we seek to clarify what is expected of a Costs Lawyer in terms of delegating the conduct of litigation.

The CLSB wants your views about proposed changes to the Disciplinary Rules and Procedures (DR&P). Each year the CLSB reviews complaints in the previous practising year and looks at whether improvements can be made to the DR&P for the benefit of all involved. Unintentional ambiguity is not considered helpful and we have determined that the DR&P could be improved to increase understanding and simplify language. We are not aware of any need to change the fundamentals of the DR&P.

As with proposed changes to the Practising Rules, we have highlighted the changes we propose in the table in the document on our consultations page, and included a full version of how the new DR&P would look if the changes are approved. The CLSB must follow a procedure that involves meaningful consultation prior to submitting an application to the Legal Services Board (LSB). The consultation will close on 7 August 2026 at 5pm.

In addition to various minor amendments that seek to primarily tidy up language and offer greater clarity, the key proposed amendments can be summarised as follows:

• Removal of a condition to hold a practising certificate at the time a complaint is made to the CLSB. This ensures that a Costs Lawyer cannot surrender their Practising Certificate to circumnavigate the complaints process and avoid any necessary investigation; the result of which could be important when assessing future applications to be reinstated to the CLSB Register.
• Making clear that extending the time limits for making a complaint will only apply in exceptional circumstances.
• Allowing the CLSB greater discretion to introduce new evidence into an existing complaint that leads to a new line of investigation. This will speed up the process and reduce costs compared with opening a new independent investigation case, as is currently the process.
• Increasing the financial amounts of fixed costs orders and introducing a new variable costs order to replace the former financial penalty; neither of which can be imposed unless a complaint has been upheld. This is common practice across regulation and ensures that where a complaint against an individual is upheld, they cover the costs of the process. This avoids the regulated community from picking up the costs of poor behaviour and leaves it only covering the costs of complaints that are not upheld.
• New, clearer language that specifies what stages of the disciplinary process can and cannot be appealed, and where the final route of appeal ends.

Please read the full consultation paper. We invite you to respond to this consultation online using this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZY53WTV.

Please note there is a separate link for each consultation.