Whilst the court decision late last year in UIC Insurance Company Ltd related to a provisional liquidation it provided some useful pointers as to the approach the courts would take when issues relating to an office holder’s remuneration were referred to it for consideration, reinforcing the points made in the Practice Direction. Two points in particular to draw from the decision are:
1. Time recording should be completed in no more than 6 minute units. This is certainly the expectation of the regulators as anything longer increases the risk that the work undertaken will not comprise the whole of a unit.
2. Narrative indicating the work done should be provided to justify and evidence the time spent, with the amount of detail provided depending upon the number of units of work undertaken at a particular time.
The court decision mirrored what we find on visits, namely that it is usually the IP, the person with the highest charge out rate in the practice, that does not provide any narrative to indicate what they have done when charging time to a case. To see the effects on your practice, consider what would happen if the court were to be involved in fixing or assessing remuneration on a particular case and the IP’s time were to be excluded for want of any justification as to what work was undertaken.
