Business Context
The Costs Solution Accelerator is designed to accelerate the configuration of ShareDo Costs solutions by providing a package containing:
- Design Documents that can be used to define requirements with your stakeholders.
- Process Maps that can be used to facilitate process design workshops.
- ShareDo configuration samples, including work types, workflows, personas, portals, reports and forms.
Generally, in litigated dispute matters, the losing party will pay the winning party's legal fees; however, in many case types, these costs will be limited according to the CPR 45 fixed costs rules (Jackson Reforms).
Where the costs fall outside of CPR 45, the level of costs can vary massively. The costs incurred depend on the subject of the claim, the complexity of the case, the level of court fees, and counsel or solicitors’ fees.
During the lifecycle of a litigated case (whether that be Part 7 or Part 8), there will be 2 key interactions with costs:
- The preparation of a cost budget.
- The preparation or negotiation of a bill of costs either by the Paying or Receiving Party.
For both of these activities, it is important that there is dedicated work management and the assignment of cost professionals.
The Costs Accelerator enables Costs Matters to be added:
- As a “bolt-on” to an existing matter.
- As a separate stand-alone service offering to support matters that are external to the firm (direct instructions).
- It also enables Costs Matters to be performed.
- Either the claimant or the defendant for the purposes of Cost Budgeting.
- Either the receiving party (i.e., the party receiving the costs) or the paying party ( i.e., the party paying the costs) for the Bill of Costs.
The process described above is true for England and Wales, but it will differ considerably for different jurisdictions in terms of court procedures, naming conventions, data capture, key dates, and workflows.
To continue delivering a ‘best-in-class’ service to clients and internally whilst maximising profitability, the Costs Solution Accelerator aims to:
- Drive efficiencies for the costs team to reduce the time required for budget and bill preparation.
- Streamline data capture of the matter-level information required to produce cost budgets and bills while supporting the easy export of this data to external costs applications (e.g. Cost Master) and hence reduce the need for duplicate entry across different systems.
- Enable cost budgets to be monitored and tracked when in effect on a specific matter.
- Track the key dates associated with the cost process ensuring that deadlines are not missed.
- Make referrals easier both internally and externally.
Solution Components
The following diagram illustrates the overall solution components for the Costs Solution Accelerator.
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Client's Statement of Work and Contracts |
In ShareDo, matters (and indeed instructions) are performed under the control of a Statement of Work. The Statement of Work defines for a given set of parameters such as:
Note: where Costs Matters are performed under an existing matter, the costs processing variables should be included in the parent matter's SoW, e.g. cost variables should be included within a claimant or defendant SoW. |
| Costs Matter | The matter under which the end-to-end processes for costs are managed. |
| Dispute Matters | Typically, within ShareDo, a variety of Dispute Matters will be performed for both Claimants and Defendants. These matters can trigger related Costs Matters at key points within their lifecycle e.g. DQ, CMC or upon litigation outcomes. |
| Instructions |
Instructions are the primary container for processing inbound instructions for debt services. Just like any other item of work in ShareDo, they can be specialised to meet specific processing requirements. Using instructions, you can model the different data and processing requirements for different cost types, such as budgeting or paying party. |
| Payments | Payment requests are used to manage the payment of settlement costs. |
| Proceedings – Part 7/8 |
ShareDo provides a specialist work type for litigation. The proceedings modeller can be used to configure litigation for different court procedures, tracks and jurisdictions. Note: A Costs Matter may include elements of procedural requirements (Part 7/8) within it. |
| Recoveries (Invoices) | Invoices are used to manage the receipt of monies for costs |
| Task and Activities |
ShareDo provides several core task “building” blocks out of the box. Examples include Doc Automation, Contact (Email, Fax, SMS), Appointments, Telephone calls and the like. Similar to all other work types, these can be extended for specific processing needs, such as the required data capture. |
| Workflows |
In ShareDo, workflows can be as automated or assistive as you like. They can simply guide users, or aim to replace case handlers as is appropriate for your work management style. There will be a variety of Costs specific workflows running for both cost and dispute matters including:
|
Matter Type Support
The solution accelerator is designed to support the following matter types:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Matter – Costs | Abstract work type for all Costs Matters. |
| Matter – Costs – E&W | Abstract work type for costs for a given jurisdiction, e.g. E&W. When extending this accelerator for different jurisdictions, you will typically create additional top-level work types for this purpose. |
| Costs Budgeting | Matter type for the production of your cost budgets and the review of opponents budgets. |
| Costs – Receiving Party | Matter type where you are the receiving party for costs with process management for the production of bill of costs together with associated processes for costs certificates etc. |
| Costs – Paying Party | Matter type where you are the paying party for costs with process management for points of dispute and the production of Precedent G etc. |
Depending upon whether you provide the costs service externally to either the market or Matters outside of ShareDo, you may further extend the Matter types for Internal and External.
Related Accelerators
ShareDo's accelerators are designed to be componentised, with common accelerators being referenced by other accelerators. The Costs Solution accelerator should be implemented with reference to the following accelerators.
| Solution Accelerator | Description |
|---|---|
| Offers |
Describes processes for making or receiving offers.
|
| Part 8 | Management of Part 8 proceedings *currently in design |
Solution Highlights
The following table lists some of the highlights of the solution from the Debt Accelerator.
| Highlight | Description |
|---|---|
| Suitable for use both internally and externally |
The costs accelerator uses ShareDo’s personalisation engine to adapt the look and feel and data capture to whether Costs Matter is being performed stand-alone or as a sub-matter to an existing disputes matter.  |
| Capture your cost budgets |
The Budgeting matter type enables you to capture both your and your opponent's costs budgets.  This information can be used for tracking purposes for inclusion in relevant precedents. *Integration with applications such as cost master is planned for future releases of this accelerator |
| Protocol-driven key dates | The Costs Accelerator provides configuration for all of the key protocol dates—CCMC, DQ, Points of Dispute, Assessment papers, etc. Reminder workflows manage and monitor these key dates, ensuring they aren’t missed. |
| Capture Points of Dispute electronically |
ShareDo can enable your Points of Dispute to be captured electronically and then included in your Precedent G  |
| Manage Settlement Information |
Capture Settlement Payment Expectations or Payments based on your budgets.  Receive or make offers and capture valuable MI around savings achieved. |
Solution Workflows
The following table lists some of the pre-configured starter workflows available in the Costs Solution Accelerator. These can then be extended to meet your needs – see the following article to understand workflow automation in ShareDo.
| Workflow | Description |
|---|---|
| Cost Budgeting Workflows | |
| Prepare Costs Budgets | On the creation of a new Costs Matter for budgeting, the system will set a number of tasks and then monitor them for completeness within deadlines. |
| Assess Other side’s cost budget | On the creation of a new Costs Matter for budgeting, the system will create a document expectation for the receipt of the other side’s cost budget and guide the user through the response to it. |
| Negotiate Cost Budgets | Once costs budgets are prepared, either party may raise disputes through the production of Precedent R documents. If budgets cannot be agreed then a CCMC will be held. |
| Costs and Case Management Conference | Prior to the CCMC a checklist task will be created to ensure that preparation is scheduled. |
| Paying Party Workflows | |
| Assess Bill of Costs | Depending upon the stage at which we are instructed, this workflow will either wait for the Bill of Costs or else will create a task for these to be reviewed. The Case Handler will then consider the next course of action (Negotiate or Settle) |
| Negotiation | Following the initial review of the Bill of Costs, the handler has decided to move to Negotiation, which triggers this workflow. In the workflow process Points of Dispute are raised together with the management of offers. |
| Settlement | Manages the process of settling the agreed bill of costs. |
| Hearing | Manages the preparation for an assessment hearing. |
| Post Hearing | When a hearing date is entered then this workflow will add a reminder for a follow up one day after the hearing date. This will create an expectation of the Costs Certificate together with a Post Hearing Checklist. |
| Receiving Party Workflows | |
| Prepare and Serve Bill of Costs | This workflow encompasses the drafting and serving of the bill of costs. |
| Negotiate Bill of Costs | Following the issuing of the Bill of Costs this workflow handles the monitoring for the receipt of Points of Dispute and if necessary the application for a Default Cost Certificate. |
| Application for Cost Hearing | Manages the process for the application of cost hearing. |
| Hearing | Manages the process for the hearing process. |
| Settlement | Manages the process of capturing the payment expectation and if necessary chasing it. |
The ShareDo Knowledge Base contains a wealth of knowledge for users, configurators, and administrators. Find the knowledge base at https://help.sharedo.co.uk/