About slideshow | Practico. Costs Lawyers.

Seven reasons to instruct Practico

Why Practico is the partner of choice for law firms and in-house legal departments who are engaging in costs management

1. We have the best people

True expertise resides in Practico’s people. We are steeped in civil costs at all levels and have tackled successfully many of the most challenging costs cases in the last 20 years, from the largest scale multi-tier group actions to complex commercial cases involving mind-bending apportionment problems. The feedback that has pleased us the most over the years, however, is when clients have said to us not only that we know our stuff but that they always know we are on their side.

2. We sell services not commodities

It is fashionable to recast law firms as product sellers. We reject this notion. The clients we work closely with continue to perform the role of trusted adviser. We believe in fulfilling that same function in respect of our service to law firms and in-house legal departments.

3. We forage for economies

Despite not buying wholesale into the commoditisation theory we do not underestimate the need to examine every component of our service offerings and control them by systems, procedures and technology to reduce costs and promote high service levels.

4. We are not afraid to work ourselves out of a job

The scary but most interesting part of our stated vision for costs management is that we are setting out to help our clients reduce their dependency (and expenditure) on costs drafting services – the exact job that has provided our living up until now. This is the necessary corollary to encouraging law firms not merely to pay lip service to costs management but to engage fully with it.

5. Do or be done to

As unpopular as the Jackson reforms are within the legal profession, the provisions about costs management and the reform and demystification of the costs assessment process are seen by lawyers as a) overdue and b) generally a good thing.

At Practico we have seen the writing on the wall since 2009 - in fact we helped to put it there.

6. Change for the better

We are confident about embracing change because we have a vision of how the move to budgetary control of litigation costs can benefit law firms. Adherence to realistic budgets will improve recovery of chargeable time - essential if firms are to preserve a strong litigation practice.

7. Our credentials – three firsts

Before forming Practico we had been providing thought leadership on costs management since the early days of the Jackson review. We were the first advocates of adapting phase task and activity categorisation into the cost regime for budgeting and assessment; the first to design a specific web-based costs budgeting application and the first costs lawyers to perfect the creation of the framework for bills of costs direct from our clients' practice management systems.