https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/non-advocacy-3/
https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/non-advocacy-3/
| Advice & Assistance | Schedule 3, Part II | A(i) |
| ABWOR |
Schedule 3, Part I
|
2(i) |
| Legal Aid |
Schedule 5 Civil Fees Regulations
|
2(a) & 2(b) |
This fee is payable for each quarter hour where you undertake work where there is no other fee prescribed in the respective Tables of Fees.
You should refer to the separate Legal Aid Guidance available where your attendance relates to time engaged in:
The fee is sufficiently flexible that it can be applied to any work activity that is done that meets the statutory tests of taxation where there is no other prescribed fee.
The majority of cases do not require a locus visit.
However, we appreciate that some cases may require one.
A feature of a case in which a locus visit will be allowed is where there is a relevant dispute or issue in the evidence which necessitated a locus visit.
Examples of when a locus visit is appropriate may be where:
A locus visit is usually carried out for practical reasons and you should be able to explain, fairly easily, what was hoped to be gained by the exercise.
Equally, there are some fairly practical reasons why a locus visit might appear to be unjustified. A locus cannot stay the same.
Different vehicles, passage of time can alter the scene substantially.
Locus visits are usually carried out once all information has been gathered together.
There may, exceptionally, be a reason why a locus visit is carried out at the very outset.
Presumably this would proceed on the basis of specific instructions from a client and, in such a situation, the account should detail the reason for undertaking the locus visit at that stage.
If there is only one locus visit, whether it is carried out earlier or later, it is not a significant issue as long as it can be shown that the one visit was necessary.
However, more than one locus visit should be charged only in exceptional circumstances and will require greater justification.
If the locus visit is necessary, the costs incurred are subject to normal scrutiny.
Where the locus is some distance from your office, you should try and arrange your business to fit the locus visit in with another attendance in the area.
It would be relatively unusual for you to spend more than half an hour at the scene and most locus visits, in our experience, would be considerably shorter.
Where you attend to any “non-advocacy” work while at court, a fee is chargeable for each subsequent quarter hour beyond the time covered by the advocacy fee.
In the context of attending court, in addition to advocacy the most frequent charges associated with this charge are likely to be:
You should refer to the separate Legal Aid Guidance available where your attendance at court also requires to be subject to aggregation of court time, apportionment of time or runs over the lunch adjournment period.
While there is an equivalent “non-advocacy” fee this is unlikely to ever be payable for time engaged at court or tribunal as that work would generally be directly related to a step in proceedings (ie the court/tribunal attendance itself) and considered to be representation.