Newsletter – February 2025
From the Chair
In 2024 we undertook a thematic review of the client care letters used by Costs Lawyers. We found that, while Costs Lawyers are doing some things well, there are other areas in which their client care letters are falling short. We will be taking action to address these issues in 2025.
Your client care letter – sometimes referred to as a retainer, engagement letter or terms of business – forms the basis of the relationship between you and your client. It provides an opportunity to set out your standard or case-specific terms and conditions. By ensuring this information is communicated to your client at the outset of an instruction you create clarity and certainty for both parties, and ensure you are both appropriately protected. It is important to get your client care letter right.
We recently looked at a sample of client care letters used by Costs Lawyers in different practice areas, to see whether they were in line with our guidance and the principles in the Code of Conduct. The thematic review revealed a number of common problems, such as:
- inadequate information about the services to be provided;
- limited information about charging structures and billing;
- failure to mention that clients might be liable for the other side’s costs in contentious matters;
- poor information about personal data rights, including potential non-compliance with GDPR obligations;
- poor information about PII coverage;
- uncertainty around contract termination rights and processes;
- potential non-compliance with consumer protection laws.
We have developed a programme of work to address these issues in 2025. We will be updating our guidance on client care letters to make it more user-friendly, with improved examples, top tips and links to external information. We will develop a short video on good client care practices, along with FAQs for clients. We will then develop a new Supervision Framework for client care letters, with compliance monitoring to begin in 2026.
If you need help with your own client care letter or would like to get involved in our work, please contact us.
David
Rt Hon David Heath CBE, Chair