We are regulated by the Costs Lawyer Standards Board and enjoy rights of audience in relation to all forms of legal costs dispute and litigation. We have managed some of the largest legal costs disputes ever advanced in the UK and whilst we continue receive instructions in relation to many singular, high-end, high value costs disputes, we also retain the capacity to provide the highest quality service to regular users. We provide a full range of law costs and litigation costs services, and at all stages of the costs budgeting and detailed assessment processes.
We provide a full range of legal costs services:
Our skilled negotiators offer the benefit of decades’ of experience, allowing our clients to avoid many pitfalls characteristic of legal costs negotiations. Our clients recognise the need to instruct specialist legal costs experts to ensure the best results and at lower cost, whilst freeing up instructed solicitors and counsel to do what they do best. Whether high value, one-off, or more routine, our legal costs experts will ensure that our solicitor clients achieve the very best outcomes in the costs budgeting process.
We work hard to ensure that our clients achieve the very best settlements and results on detailed assessment. That process starts with the instruction of experts in the drafting of costs claims. We were early adaptors of the ‘Jackson bill’ (precedent Model S). Whether on the paying or receiving side, our clients recognise that it makes best sense to instruct negotiators who are also experts in bill drafting. At rates typically well below those charged by solicitors and counsel, our legal costs consultants and costs lawyers offer long practiced expertise in the preparation and negotiation of legal costs claims of all kinds.
We are a specialist costs consultancy. We work hard to maintain and to live up to our reputation as one of the UK’s top providers of legal costs related services. All of our costs lawyers and consultants are highly experienced. We spurn the ‘one size fits all’ approach, characteristic of many costs consultancies; as a result we provide clients – many of whom continue to instruct us after 20 years - with the certainty that their cases will be handled by the most appropriate, competent and experienced law / legal costs experts.
Education/admissions
Afqar is involved in the firm's diversity initiatives and a keen advocate for social mobility and opportunities for all.
Afqar was amongst the first in our profession become a regulated Costs Lawyer. He enjoys rights of audience in relation all costs proceedings.
Afqar is also an accredited training provider.
Experience and notable cases
Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) –v- Iraqi Airways Company (IAC) – Following the longest running commercial case in the history of the English courts I prepared KAC’s massive costs claim, one the largest ever to reach the doors of the Senior Courts Costs Office. Legal costs claim of >£40M.
Pharma patent litigation – I was instructed by a leading global law firm on behalf of the successful parties in patent infringement and revocation proceedings involving some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Legal costs claim of >£5M.
Telecoms patent litigation – I was instructed by a top tier specialist firm of patent litigators to prepare various complex costs statements following trials and appeals involving some of the world’s largest technology corporations. Legal costs claim of >£10M.
High-profile costs claim following failed £100M civil recovery proceedings – instructed by a market leading international litigation team acting for a foreign citizen whose worldwide assets were subject of a civil recovery claim brought by the National Crime Agency (NCA). My team and I prepared a number of high value interrelated claims for costs on behalf of the successful party . Legal costs claim of >£5M.
Excalibur Ventures v Texas Keystone – The case generated several decisions of wider importance in the legal costs field (relating to security for costs, indemnity costs, and the availability of a non-party costs order against professional funders – a point on which the Association of Litigation Funders also intervened). I prepared the successful party's costs breakdowns and provided witness statements in support of its security for costs applications. Following the conclusion of the substantive litigation I prepared the defendant’s £20M> costs breakdown.
Challenge to remuneration and expenses of joint administrators – instructed by a market leading international litigation team: I was instructed to prepare a detailed challenge to the charges of a global financial consultancy and their advisers (including two high-profile international law firms), in connection with the administration of a UK energy supplier. The application for assessment of fees and expenses of >£5M under the Insolvency Act 1986 was the first significant challenge of its kind in 20 years.
Education
LLB (Hons) – University of London (1994)
LLM (Distinction) – University of East Anglia (2018)
PhD (law) - University of East Anglia (2024)
Professional and research interests: Costs law and practice, litigation funding, responsibility theory, vicarious liability, products liability, litigation practice, philosophical foundations of tort law. My doctoral thesis examined relationships between (pre-moral, pre-legal) outcome responsibility and strict tortious obligations of repair. Time permitting, future research output will address aspects of costs law and practice, third party litigation funding, as well as approaches to responsibility for harm caused by intelligent products (for ‘algorithmic accidents’).
