A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:
Grade C fee earner n. (1) solicitors with less than 4 years post qualification experience, legal executives and fee earners of equivalent experience (2) the office cat
Legal Costs Blog
Gibbs Wyatt Stone – Defendant Law Costs Costs Draftsmen
Yes i see this too. Particularly with the large defendant nationals as it’s “what the retainer with the client allows”
You do not indicate how many years PQE the office cat possesses, perhaps because the relationship between cat years and human years is by no means agreed. For example, our cat is one year old, which could be said to equate to 15 human years. He already assists me in my costing (although paying parties would probably say his role, which chiefly involves treasury tags and rubber bands, was more clerical then fee-earning) so if he does this for one year, he will then be the equivalent of 24 in human years, so will automatically qualify for Grade ‘A’ status.
While this is one possible way forward in the post-Jackson world, it is unlikely to commend itself to the MoJ because of the risk of more headlines about’fat cat’ lawyers.
Cats are evil.
That’s all I have to say on the matter.
I think you mean “feline earners of equivalent experience”?
A ‘newly crowned’ Grade C fee earner (Solicitor NOT legal Executive) will have attained – Degree / LPC / 6 months seat in the discipline of choice and 2 office parties.
Surely therefore an unqualified Fee Earner holding say a full year of running their own P.i. caseload would justify the additional £40.00 per hour?
Preparing bills of costs are so easy I regularly instruct my trained monkey to prepare them
@TECP is your monkey authorised to do that, given the move to make it a restricted activity? Personally, I would say if they do make it a restricted activity, your monkey will be overqualified …:p
But still one grade above Costs Lawyer !!!