A costs judge has rejected calls for claimant lawyers to be punished for alleged conflict in the way counsel was instructed to handle a case.

Costs Judge James ruled in Balaj & Ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department that the conduct of the claimant lawyer involved did ‘not come anywhere near to conduct which the consensus of professional opinion would regard as improper’.

The Home Office had objected to City firm Ashton Ross Solicitors instructing counsel from Imperium Chambers in a judicial review matter, when its senior lawyer Zahab Jamali, a registered foreign lawyer, was a pupil barrister there completing his training.

Defence counsel Andrew Lyons said this was a ‘substantial error of judgement’ and created a ‘clear conflict’ which amounted to a pupil repaying his own pupillage award.

The firm submitted there was no misconduct involved and that Imperium was only involved in three of the eight cases. The court heard that the firm ‘deplored’ the actions of the home secretary focusing on Jamali at the start of their career at the bar.

Costs Judge James noted there would have been an issue if Jamali could be seen as instructing himself, but that had not happened in this case.

The judge added: ‘Evidently AR and IC did not think there was anything untoward in this arrangement; given their own involvement that by itself would not be persuasive. However, ZJ exhibited correspondence with the Bar Council and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority; neither of those organisations had any issues with what had taken place.’

But the judge did rule that the solicitors’ firm should be penalised for its conduct in running up ‘very high’ costs on legal research and witness statements which represented ‘unreasonably high times and hourly rates’.

The costs bill had already been reduced on provisional assessment by almost 60% to £10,139 after Jamali had claimed hourly fees of £409 or £490 at a Grade A City of London guideline hourly rate.

The costs judge said that even if Jamali had been a Grade A fee earner, these cases did not warrant someone of that level charging those rates when the work could have been done outside of central London.

‘It is not reasonable (nor is it proportionate) to instruct the highest grade of fee earner in the most expensive area of England and Wales, to undertake work of which a Grade B fee earner in Outer London would be eminently capable,’ added the costs judge. ‘There is an abundant choice of competent immigration law firms in the London 3 area without clients choosing to instruct a firm in the City of London.’

Given the findings, the costs judge opted to make no costs order.