Claiming costs for #CCMSfail

Our recent guest post from Noel Arnold prompted an interesting comment from Paul Seddon, chair of the Association of Costs Lawyers legal aid group. In case readers saw the original post before the comment was posted, it’s worth reproducing here:

When the certificate is live, LAA Finance told us at ACL Legal Aid Group Conference that any time on CCMS exceeding paper based process should be claimed as ex gratia payment – reason given was that it would unduly prejudice any client subject to the statutory charge.

It seems that the LAA has said that any time claimed under the certificate dealing with CCMS which exceeds what would have been spent had the case been on paper will be disallowed, so the ex gratia route is the main way of re-claiming lost time.

Matt Howgate, who used to administer the ex gratia scheme for the LAA, has written a useful article on making claims.

Resolution has launched a survey asking for feedback from CCMS users:

SURVEY: If you use the LAA’s Client and Cost Management System (CCMS), we want to hear from you: https://t.co/P0hNvzuNQ5

— Resolution (@ResFamilyLaw) March 7, 2016