Member Article

Clarion’s fast-growing costs and litigation funding team expands its national standing and international reach

Having again been rated as one of the top firms in the UK for legal costs services, Clarion’s specialist costs and litigation funding team is growing its reputation overseas having this year undertaken work for law firm clients in Guernsey and Dubai.

Over the last 13 years, Clarion’s costs practice has grown into one of the largest and most renowned across the UK. With a 30-strong dedicated team, its revenue has doubled in the last five years and it now supports over 200 law firm clients nationwide, dealing with more than 3,500 matters a year.

For the fourth consecutive year, Clarion’s practice has achieved Band 1 status in the prestigious Chambers & Partners legal rankings report - the only provider in the country to do so.

Partner Andrew McAulay, who trained with Clarion and has over 20 years’ experience working in legal costs claims, said: “Having initially set up the practice in 2010, our specialist costs law services for law firms are going from strength-to-strength. As well as continuing to expand our client base and the team, our revenue grew by around 15% last year and we’ve also seen a lot more national work coming from London and the rest of the UK post-Covid. The position we have established in London as specialists in the field, has also led to us winning more overseas work from other jurisdictions including Guernsey and Dubai. Increasingly, we are advising on international elements on a wide variety of cases from insolvent litigation and commercial disputes to personal injury and medical negligence.

“Our growing reputation has also resulted in us being brought in to support litigators involved in more complex, higher value disputes, often with damages worth millions of pounds.”

The Chambers & Partners’ review of Litigation Support praises the Clarion costs team for being “industry leaders when it comes to cost drafting and are highly competent in dealing with the most complex and high-value cases”. In addition, Andrew McAulay is, for the fourth year in a row, ranked as a leading individual in Band 1 and is described as “an exceptionally talented and conscientious costs lawyer. He has a very strong knowledge of all aspects of costs law and is the go-to person for complex and high-level litigation cases”. He is joined in the prestigious ranking by Clarion colleague, legal director, Stephanie Kaye.

“We are extremely proud not only to be one of only two costs funding practices in the UK to achieve a top tier position with Chambers, but also that Stephanie Kaye and I are two of only a handful of leading individuals in the field to be recognised from across the whole of the UK,” comments McAulay. “We were also very pleased to be included in The Legal 500’s first review of the sector (London based firms) with the organisation making an exception and featuring us despite us not being London-based. It is yet another demonstration that our reputation, based on the quality of our offering and our ability to be competitive on price, is taking our specialist services beyond national and international boundaries.”

Clarion’s costs and litigation funding team specialises in court of protection, commercial litigation and personal injury/medical negligence costs claims. It deals with the full spectrum of legal costs work, including costs management and detailed assessments. The practice acts for both the paying or receiving party and is regularly instructed directly by lay clients, owner managed businesses and large corporates.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Emma Kilmurray .