POC signed by Corporate Officer - in house solicitor - £80 legal rep costs claimed

[efpom]

The statements of truth in Particulars of Claim was signed by an in house solicitor in his capacity as a senior corporate officer of the Claimant.

The claimant claimed costs of £80 on the claim form – as legal representative’s costs.

My provisional view is that the claimant is not entitled to claim those costs, but I would welcome the views of others.

[des8]

Had a case back in 2016 against Parking Eye, who use in house solicitor, and their Legal Reps costs of £50 were allowed altho' we challenged them them

[efpom]

An unrepresented legal person i.e. a company, is a litigant in person.

The claim form-particulars of claim statement of truth therefore, falls to be signed by an officer of the company, who may delegate that task to someone else working for the company.

An in-house solicitor may be delegated to do that task, but he is not signing as a solicitor i.e. the claimant’s legal representative, he is signing on behalf of an officer of the company.

As he is not acting as a solicitor, my preliminary view is that the solicitor fixed costs regime is not in play.

[efpom]

It looks as if Shackleton And Associates Ltd v Shamsi & Ors [2017] EWHC 304 (Comm) (23 February 2017) at 37 onwards,

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2017/304.html

throws my proposition in extreme doubt!

However, I would still be grateful for any observations.

[R0b]

Think you might be out of luck, I was going to throw in a few cases but I think this law firm's article sums up some of those cases quite neatly.

https://www.harbottle.com/news/im-ho...tigation-time/

A more detailed explanation can be found below.

https://verycivilbarrister.co.uk/in-house-legal-costs



P.s. It's one of those quirks that nobody knows about unless they're pointed to and I've used it in the past.

[efpom]

Thanks everyone, this rich seam turns out to be fool's gold.