Costs Lawyers vote against CLSB separation and expanding membership

Costs Lawyers yesterday voted down the ideas of tearing up the ACL’s memorandum of understanding with the Costs Lawyers Standards Board (CLSB) and letting unqualified costs people into the association.

The CLSB vote was 27 in favour and 171 against, and the expanded membership vote was 24 in favour and 176 against. Around 60 members attended the meeting in London, with the rest of the votes made by proxy.

In his introduction to the meeting, chairman Iain Stark (pictured) said a core need was to increase revenue. Despite various cost-cutting measures in the past 18 months since he took on the role, the ACL still recorded a loss of £45,000 last year, while the ACL’s membership is down by 90 this year, to 551.

“We have to increase membership or increase subscription fees, at least twofold. I’m not concerned that I might be the last chairman, but I am concerned that I might be the last chairman with funds.”

Severing the memorandum of understanding was part of a push to increase regulatory independence for the CLSB.

There was, however, little support in the room for either measure, with a common complaint being that members had not received enough information to make the decisions. There was support, however, for increasing membership fees, with one speaker from the floor saying that “if you really believe you have an ongoing career as a Costs Lawyer, why are you afraid of paying higher fees?”

He added: “We should raise the fee to make us solvent and become a professional body that can look after itself and its members.”

Member Ed Strickland said that a £90 increase in fees would wipe out last year’s deficit and, if the ACL could contribute by continuing to cut costs, it could be the equivalent of an extra £5 a month for members to pay.

Former chairman Murray Heining expressed concerns that the ACL would no longer have a right to be consulted by an untethered CLSB and that the regulator could dilute the number of practitioners on its board. He expressed hope that, were the cost of separation regulation to prove unaffordable in future, Costs Lawyers could resume self-regulation.

Mr Heining was adamantly opposed to widening membership, saying there was no evidence of how many new members this would generate and in any case “it must also affect our own status as Costs Lawyers”.

He added: “We fought long and hard since 1977 [for recognition]. This association is appropriate for qualified professionals.” While he knew “many decent and competent” unqualified costs people, equally there were many others who were not competent.

Mr Heining said the first step should be to try and bring the 90 who have left the ACL back into the fold, while one speaker also mentioned the incidence of firms with multiple Costs Lawyers that only pay for one to be an ACL member.

Paul Seddon said he would have considered voting to explore greater separation with the CLSB – which was what Mr Stark said would be the next step if people voted for it – but that was not the question before members. He too expressed disquiet at the prospect of people joining the ACL “that those in this room don’t want to be associated with”.

Other issues raised included offering an ‘affiliate’ membership status for non-Costs Lawyers so that they were not full members, and whether there could be a return to the previous position where Costs Lawyers paid a combined fee for the CLSB and ACL – under the Legal Services Act 2007, the cost of certain representative activities can be levied as part of practising fees.

Speaking after the meeting, Iain Stark said: “These were proposals that we wanted to put before the membership – the council needed a clear mandate, which is why it did not express a view. The votes means that we continue as we are, and that members see a rise in subscription fees as the best way to ensure the financial stability of the association. What was perhaps most pleasing was the level of member engagement this debate has generated, and I hope that we can harness that as we take the ACL forward.”

 

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Costs News
Published date
22 Feb 2018

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