You will regularly see the pledge from litigation firms that their lawyers are available to clients at all times of the day and night.

The clients have their lawyers’ mobile phone numbers and should feel free to call for an update on their case.

It’s a nice wheeze, albeit no doubt quite annoying for lawyers to have their evenings interrupted by a client for whom the morning just wasn’t soon enough.

But with the fixed costs extension now weeks rather than months away (assuming the government doesn’t postpone at the last minute – and you wouldn’t put it past them), firms might have to start withholding those numbers.

Quite simply, if clients don’t want lawyers dipping into their damages to cover the costs shortfall, they are going to have to significantly lower their expectations.

As one speaker said yesterday at the Clarion Costs conference in Leeds, firms will have to explain they are no longer offering a Rolls Royce service, and instead make clear this may be a Ford Fiesta level instead.

The idea of graded client service is nothing new, either in the law or in other professions. Conveyancers often pledge to offer a bronze, silver or gold standard service depending on how quickly and efficiently the clients wants the work done (and how much they are will to stump up for the privilege).

But these types of arrangements are usually commoditised legal services relying on process. The idea of litigation lawyers under-playing what they can realistically offer may seem anathema, but it’s going the same way.

From the outset, firms will need to address exactly what clients can expect of their lawyers. This will mean different working patterns, with home visits at a premium and most interactions sporadic and done remotely. Clients will have to expect that lawyers are not able to regularly speak to them without the cost of that conversation being absorbed into deductions from their damages.

Speakers at the conference suggested that firms will have to do more due diligence on potential clients and whether they are likely to understand and accept the financial implications of reduced recoverable costs. Clients who come out of the cold will have to be vetted to a much greater extent.

There may even be greater expectations of clients themselves to do more of the leg work on witness evidence to keep costs down.

For existing clients, it must be worth sitting down with them and setting out exactly what the costs were of work before the FRC extension and how the same levels would be funded after 1 October. Most of all, there needs to be honesty and transparency from the outset of the client relationship – including the caveat that this is an imprecise exercise.

The new regime will be fraught with uncertainty and satellite litigation while the details of the extension are cleared up. But in the meantime lawyers will have to sit down and explain to clients that the goalposts have shifted. If they want the same level of service they previously enjoyed, it’s likely to cost them. It may well be awkward, but it’s a whole lot easier than the adverse publicity and potential litigation down the line when client expectations are not met or their damages end up much less than they bargained for.

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