High Cost Case Plans

At Lovell Chohan we have the experience and expertise in preparing Very High Cost Case (VHCC) plans for both family and civil cases. The service we offer is effective in releasing you from the burden of preparing the plan and to enable you to focus on the case.

If you have a publicly funded case where costs are likely to exceed £25,000.00, a High Cost Case Plan needs to be prepared for costs over and above this sum. Our Costs Department is able to prepare the plan, liaise with organisations to obtain up to date fees and disbursements, liaise with the Legal Services Commission Very High Costs Case Unit (VHCC), amend the plans, and ensure you obtain the costs you deserve for the work you have done, or will have to do in the future.

The LSC's Special Cases Unit (SCU) is responsible for managing funding for complex or high cost civil cases which fall into four types:

1. Exceed £25,000, such as The Children Act 1989 and Judicial Review cases
2. Multi-Party Actions: these range from 1,000 claimant actions to 10 claimant actions
3. Exceptional funding cases: when funding is approved outside of the Funding Code Criteria
4. Exceptional 'One Off' contracts with firms without franchises: eg where clients run out of money during a case and the firm has no franchise.

When a case is identified as being potentially high costs we will register it as such with the LSC and then prepare either a 3 part plan comprising of your pre-contract costs, costs to date of the plan preparation and all future costs or an "Events" based model plan. We ensure that all costs are claimed with enhancements (where applicable) and draw up the final plan for submission.

Our fees are based on your WIP costs to date of the plan preparation, there are no additional costs. We will also negotiate with the VHCC Unit on your behalf ensuring a seamless service.

Current regulations allow for time engaged in preparing the case plan to be included within the stage costs and accordingly we aim to factor in time to cover our fees such that the net cost to your firm of instructing us will usually be nil, unless other aspects apply.