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Costs services for law firms

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Taylor Rose is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of legal cost services representing clients such as Allianz, AXA, MIB, NFU Mutual and QBE.

Costs Service for insurers and lawyers

Taylor Rose is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of legal costs services representing major insurer clients.

At Taylor Rose, our team of highly experienced team has been instructed to negotiate costs running into the hundreds of millions of pounds. The team also drafts bills of costs and other costs documentation.

Our History

The costs department was created as a result of the merger with Jaggards Legal Costs Consultants, Taylor Rose Law and Tucker Turner Kingsley Wood in 2015. Jaggards was a well-known name in the costs world as costs draftsmen for almost two decades.

All the accrued knowledge and experience was carried over into the new company.

Costs Recovery Explained

Under the law in England and Wales, a person who makes a successful compensation claim is also able to recover the legal costs they have incurred. For example, the fees the person has paid or is due to pay to their own lawyer for representation. The negligent person or their insurer is responsible for paying those fees, or legal ‘costs’, as well as the compensation.

The costs don’t just include the time invested by the lawyer, but also any third party fees paid out during the claims process. For example, fees for a medical report on personal injuries, court fees and other reports on general damages. So, the person making the claim is never out of pocket. Our costs team will represent your insurer or your solicitor or others to negotiate what and how much those costs are.

Our strengths

  • Sleek, efficient procedures

  • Bespoke costs case management systems

  • 25 years' experience in the legal industry

  • Leading costs experts in the field

Our Legal Services

Our legal team of costs experts offer the complete costs services package including:

  • Costs negotiation – all types of claims and all types of costs

  • Costs budgeting

  • Costs drafting

  • Costs in foreign jurisdictions

  • Advocacy

  • Round table negotiations

  • Telephone advice

  • Consultancy and training

  • Auditing

  • Data capture and management information

Contact us today

Telephone -
9am to 5pm

020 3540 4444

Key contact

Nicola Smith

Costs Team Manager

Nicola has worked in legal costs since leaving school. Nicola gained 11 years’ experience within a local firm of solicitors dealing with preparation of bills of costs for private clients, legal aid claims as well as drafting & negotiating between t......

Further information

Our experienced advocacy team is based in our Peterborough office and handles hearings on existing instructions, but is also willing to accept external instructions to attend any costs hearing – generally within a radius of 100 miles or two hours from travel from the office.

The team attends costs management hearings, application hearings and assessment hearings.

We have specific experience in contested fixed costs issues and we aim to minimise the instruction of counsel so as to provide the best value overall service for clients.

We are typically able to offer better value than instructing specialist counsel.

For more information on how we can assist you please contact our advocacy team.

 This is an established off-shoot of our costs negotiation work, which always required close auditing of insurers’ files to understand the opponent’s claim for costs.

We now frequently audit insurers’ own legal service providers. Our experience of both high and low profile accounts, and technical and non-technical cases, means that we are able to audit and provide expert, personalised costs advice in order to maximise costs and efficiency savings.

Many of our clients are insurance companies who require an expert eye to be cast over their panel solicitor’s files, in order to check that the files are compliant or alternatively for insight into whether savings could be made. We are able to conduct audits in-house, in order to maintain the good relationship already in place with the legal service provider, or provide a take-away service, in order to avoid disruption to the day to day running of the supplier’s business.

We advise our clients whether costs could be saved in future, and whether the costs could or should be recovered from the supplier. We are able to spot whether a panel solicitor concluded the case in the most favourable way to you, and how to fix the problem if it didn’t.

We offer three specific types of audit which can be carried out by our team of experts:

Compliance auditing

Compliance auditing starts from a neutral baseline, from which points are lost for non-conformities, and credit is gained for good performance and positive behaviour. We look for substantial compliance with a relevant Service Level Agreement or best practice.

Investigative auditing

We make an analysis based on specific concerns raised in advance of the audit. For instance, concerns may have arisen because of errors and an insurer may want to grasp the extent of the problem.

Leakage auditing

This focuses squarely on financial consequences. We assess the notional cost of decision-making, errors and omissions against the potential spend and determine whether it is within a reasonable margin of appreciation.

We always prepare a written audit report and that is usually accompanied by a feedback session.

Using Taylor Rose as an external auditor will assist in determining problem areas and where improvements can be made, freeing up your time and improving efficiency. We are here to relieve the pressure and stress of auditing files.

For a no obligation quote, or to request further information, please contact us. 

At Taylor Rose we understand the importance of ensuring that you have an accurate and well prepared budget to maximise your costs recovery at the conclusion of a claim. An inaccurate or badly prepared budget could lead to your costs recovery being severely compromised.

We pride ourselves on being able to provide a fast and efficient turnaround for the preparation of costs budgets, liaising with you throughout to ensure that all possible eventualities are accounted for, as well as advising in relation to alternative scenarios that you may not initially have considered relevant to the claim.

We appreciate that sometimes it is necessary for costs budgets to be prepared at very late notice, and the combination of our experienced staff together with our in-house database and diary systems ensure that we deliver a first class service without compromise to quality and accuracy.

We also appreciate the importance of maximising reductions in relation to an opponent’s budget. To assist there, we prepare a detailed analysis of your opponent’s budget on a phase by phase basis to highlight where and why we consider reductions should be made.

It is imperative in light of Harrison v University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust that all relevant objections to the opponent’s budgeted costs are presented. The analysis report prepared will enable you to enter into negotiations with your opponent prior to the CCMC should you wish, or alternatively we are more than happy to deal with all elements of costs budgeting up to and including attendance at the CCMC on your behalf.

Our dedicated costs budgeting team can provide a range of services to meet your firm’s individual needs. Services include:

  • Preparation of initial Budget (Precedent H)
  • Detailed analysis of an opponent’s budget in comparison with your budget
  • Costs budget negotiations
  • Preparation of Budget Discussion Report (Precedent R)
  • Preparation of comparison schedule
  • Advocacy at CCMC

For a no obligation quote, or to request further information, please contact us.

Work is divided between our teams of specialists according to type: fixed costs, fast track and multi-track/catastrophic. Specific skills and attention to detail is required in each area.

We manage the whole process of assessment, including preparation of points of dispute and considering replies, and dealing with any assessment.

Our expertise is underpinned by our specialist costs services claims management system and database, which is coded and maintained in house. We believe it is the most powerful dedicated system of its type.

Our expertise and willingness to act under a Collective Conditional Fee Agreement (CCFA) ensures that our client’s potential cost risks are minimised and claimant's solicitors are exposed to a real cost risk if they are unsuccessful.

As supervisors of costs negotiation firms, we offer an unrivalled level of control and well managed resolution via the courts, providing complete peace of mind for clients.

We have a team dedicated to helping you to achieve the best result possible. Whether you have an order for the detailed assessment of your costs, require an order for your costs, or require a statement of costs for an urgent upcoming hearing, we are here to help.

If needed, we are also able to draft a statement of costs for informal negotiations. Further, we are able to provide advice if you are unsure as to your eligibility to recover costs.

Following the outcome of Harrison v University Hospitals and Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, drafting a bill in line with an approved budget and costs management order can seem like a daunting task. With our expertise, we can take the pressure off, and provide you with advice to maximise your costs recovery.

This helpful service can operate in conjunction with our costs negotiation services. Where there are costs orders for both the claimant and defendant, we can negotiate the liability to the opponent as well as recover your own costs.

We are able to assist in the following ways:

  • Preparing N260 statement of costs in preparation for a final hearing, saving you valuable time when the case is drawing to a conclusion;
  • If you have an order for costs, we are able to assist with preparing a bill and preparing the notice of commencement of detailed assessment. We are able to prepare this as a stand-alone service, or assist with the entire detailed assessment procedure. We can consider points of dispute and prepare replies, advise you on case strategy, set the matter down for assessment, prepare bundles and draft a coherent note of the outcome;
  • Where a costs management order has been made, we are able to draft a bill of costs in line with the costs budget, and prepare an obligatory Precedent Q;
  • We will work closely with you on a personal basis to advise, seek instructions and update whenever necessary in order to bring the claim for costs to a triumphant conclusion;
  • We will negotiate costs in line with your instructions, providing expertise and advice if required;
  • We are able to make application for costs orders if required and undertake in-house advocacy, seeking assistance from counsel if necessary;
  • We are committed to ensuring you get the best costs recovery possible and are able to assist with enforcement of the payment of costs following conclusion if required.
  • We aim to recover our fees from the paying party in the assessment.

We have provided essential data to both of Lord Justice Jackson’s reviews of civil litigation costs. Our data was a key progenitor of fixed recoverable costs.

We offer a variety of data capture services. Insurers and compensators generate a wealth of claims data, much of which is not systematically stored, unreportable and, at worst, lost. We are able to capture and sort your data according to your requirements, and compile it when you need it in a format that suits – including heavy Ministry of Justice data requests.

Our Management Information (MI) is among the most insightful in the industry. We have a series of established reports that we prepare on regular cycles. We also do a great deal of bespoke MI reporting. We can prepare reports based on your data capture that are limited only by your imagination.

Our internal data capture systems are sophisticated and reliable. You can send us your settled files (electronically or otherwise) and we will sort through them and capture the data you require. Data is a valuable asset and the data can be used to adapt or introduce policies aimed at reducing leakage. It is a valuable tool for monitoring performance.

The introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will increase the stakes and penalties involved with data storage – allow us to take on some of that stress and risk by capturing your data in a way that does not breach the obligations under GDPR.

We are able to store the data securely for you or to compile reports and send them back to you. We are happy to meet and discuss your requirements. We offer:

  • Part 7 claims data capture
  • Part 8 claims data capture
  • Fixed costs data capture
  • Detailed assessment data capture – including rates claimed and rates allowed by court
  • Personal injury data capture
  • Our services are not limited to those listed above and we will always endeavour to adjust our services to meet your reasonable requests.


We can offer a tailored data capture service to suit your business needs. Our pricing is competitive and we will work with you to find a solution to your data capture needs whilst ensuring our compliance with the legislation and regulations.

For more information on how we can assist you please contact us.

We strategically pursue test cases for early resolution and guidance on those issues, saving thousands of pounds for our clients where issues would otherwise keep coming up again and again.

We have been in many of the most important costs cases of the last two decades, including:                                               

  • Bird v Acorn Group [2017] 1 WLR 1915
  • Costin v Merron [2013] 3 Costs LR 391
  • Dockerill v Tullett [2012] 1 WLR 2092
  • Engeham v London and Quadrant Housing [2015] EWCA Civ 1530
  • Hislop v Perde (pending in the Court of Appeal)
  • Kilby v Gawith [2009] 1 WLR 853
  • Mendes v Hochtief [2016] EWHC 976 (QB)
  • Nizami v Butt [2006] 1 WLR 3307
  • Solomon v Cromwell [2012] 1 WLR 1048
  • Tasleem v Beverley [2014] 1 WLR 3567

We are different to other firms that may claim expertise in this area. Other firms end up as the post box for specialist counsel who does the heavy work, and that approach builds up considerable fees. In contrast, we give our own clear advice on the law and the merits.

We prepare appeal papers and skeleton arguments in house. We involve counsel only where it is economic or prudent to do so, typically to appear as advocate in court. We often find the court orders our opponent to pay our fees as claimed.

We have special expertise in procedural points, which are crucially important as the successive waves of new costs rules bed in. Our work supplying data to the Ministry of Justice and the fixed costs reviews mean that we are often well placed to anticipate issue before they arise.

We offer City standards at regional prices. Our team is outstanding in the field.

With the ever-changing rules, protocols and case law in civil litigation and the associated costs minefield, it is vitally important to empower your staff with the tools to enable them to undertake litigation in a proportionate, pragmatic and efficient manner.

We can provide training to many different levels including:

  • Updates as to recent changes
  • Low level training starting from a more basic level of understanding
  • Bespoke training on specific aspects/ areas of litigation and costs customised to your specific needs
  • We are willing to attend your offices to provide the training and will supply training packs to give reference material for after the completed training.


We have already successfully provided training to the following large insurers and compensators:

  • AXA Insurance
  • NFU Mutual
  • QBE
  • Equity
  • Motor Insurance Bureau
  • Allianz Insurance

Contact us today

Telephone opening hours -
9am to 5pm

020 3540 4444