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

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Summary assessment n. similar to detailed assessment but with the advocacy conducted by those with no knowledge of legal costs law and overseen by a judge with even less knowledge of the relevant law and no time to properly perform the task in any event. The outcome of which is less predictable than the winner of a race down a windowpane between two raindrops.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

After-the-event (ATE) premium n. a sum of money paid or payable for insurance against the risk of incurring a costs liability in proceedings. The premium is rarely paid at the outset and usually not paid at all if the claim is unsuccessful. The amount of the premium payable is often arbitrarily concocted as the case progresses and subsequently adjusted to whatever figure the court arbitrarily allows. An amount which market forces have never knowingly influenced.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Costs Lawyer Magazine n. the official journal of the Association of Law Costs Draftsmen. When read in public usually concealed behind a copy of Readers’ Wives magazine to avoid social embarrassment.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Costs monkey n. (derog.) what you get when you pay peanuts.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Regional Costs Judge n. a District Judge who, after a night of heavy drinking, thought they were volunteering to organise a wine tasting trip to the Loire Valley and is subsequently too embarrassed to admit their mistake or that they do not know the first thing about costs law.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Jackson Report n. A review of civil litigation costs in the English legal system undertaken by Lord Justice Jackson. The final report had a similar effect to a penalty shoot-out against Germany. It reduced grown men to tears. May decimate large swathes of the legal costs industry. Certainly decimated large swathes of the Amazon rain forest.

A further definition from The (Alternative) Legal Costs Dictionary:

Indemnity principle n. legal principle that receiving party cannot recover from paying party in legal costs more than he is liable to pay his own lawyer. To make the process fair on detailed assessment, the paying party is denied access to any information concerning the terms of the agreement between the receiving party and his lawyer unless the paying party can first establish a genuine reason to suppose more is being claimed than should be. This is done by producing the kind of evidence that the paying party is not entitled to see. If the paying party had such information, he would not need it. If he does need it, he is denied access to it because he has not been able to produce evidence as to what the evidence will show if it is disclosed. The Catch 22 of legal costs. To compensate for this rule, in the unlikely event that it can be shown that more has been claimed than should have been, the court will treat this as a “most serious disciplinary offence”. Where, during the course of a detailed assessment hearing such a breach is found to have occurred, the judge, mustering the full force of the majesty of the law, will say: “shall we move on to the next item then?”.