CILEX Fee Earners With Over Eight Years' Experience Fall Within Grade A | Above-Guideline Rates Can Still Attract A Reduction

In Prescot Management Company Limited & Anor v Zahid Khan [2026] EWHC 2855 (BP), the High Court rejected a challenge to Grade A rates that rested on the fee earner’s CILEX qualification, confirming that legal executives with over eight years’ experience fall within Grade A. The judge nonetheless expected deductions for an hourly rate above the London 3 guideline. Practitioners grading fee earners on either side of an assessment need to keep those two points apart.

Background

The claimants applied for an Extended Civil Restraint Order (ECRO) against Mr Khan. Most of his claims and applications were founded on his continued assertion of a beneficial interest in a flat, despite earlier orders to the contrary [9]. Mr Justice Twigger heard the application on 26 October 2026, made the ECRO in an extempore judgment and directed written submissions on costs [1].

The claimants, as the successful party, were entitled to their costs under the general rule [19]. The judge ordered those costs on the indemnity basis because of Mr Khan’s conduct of the application, which he found well outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of proceedings [21], [22]. The claimants filed an N260 claiming £49,076.45 and invited summary assessment, which the judge carried out himself [23].

Costs Issues Before the Court

Within the summary assessment, Mr Khan challenged the fees charged for Mr Champ, the claimants’ fee earner. Two questions arose. The first was whether a CILEX qualified fee earner could be charged at Grade A rates at all. The second was whether Mr Champ’s hourly rate of £375, which exceeded the London 3 Guideline Hourly Rates, should be allowed in full on an assessment on the indemnity basis [27].

The Parties’ Positions

Mr Khan put his challenge on two bases: that Mr Champ had been charged at Grade A rates but was CILEX qualified, and that the rate was higher than the London 3 guideline [27]. He also complained that the £10,312.50 claimed at the Grade A rate for attendances was not particularised for dates or purposes [28]. Finally, he invited the judge to step back and consider the reasonableness of the costs overall [32].

The Court’s Decision

The judge began from the indemnity basis. Costs must be reasonably incurred and reasonable in amount, and any doubt as to reasonableness is resolved in favour of the receiving party. There is no requirement to consider proportionality [24]. The judge repeated, when Mr Khan invited him to step back, that proportionality was irrelevant to an assessment on that basis [32].

On the grading point, the judge said: “There is nothing in the first point.” His reason was short: “Legal executives with over 8 years’ experience fall within the Grade A bracket.” [27]. On that statement, the CILEX route to qualification did not of itself prevent a fee earner from being charged at Grade A rates. The objection as framed, resting on the qualification alone, therefore failed.

The judge did not rest on the grading rule alone. He added that Mr Champ’s witness statements were in evidence and showed that he had day-to-day control of the matter and was “an experienced and competent litigator” [27]. Those statements had been prepared for the ECRO application itself; their drafting formed part of the work on documents claimed in the N260 [29]. The evidence of experience came from material already before the court.

The rate was treated as a separate question. The judge accepted that the £375 hourly rate was higher than the London 3 guideline. He added that it did not appear to him especially high for a case of this type, given the complex history, and deferred the point to his overall review [27].

The Grade A attendances were also challenged for want of detail. The judge accepted that the £10,312.50 was not broken down by date or purpose, but said that “it is a feature of the summary assessment procedure that a relatively broad brush is applied” [28]. He did not consider it proportionate to require further particularisation, and he found the three hours claimed for each of attendance on opponents and attendance on others reasonable [28].

The rate returned at the step back. The judge thought the total of £49,076.45 not especially high for an application of this importance and length. He nevertheless considered it likely that deductions would be made on detailed assessment, “most importantly in relation to the Grade A hourly rate, which feeds into the calculation of many of the sums claimed” [32].

To test that, the judge inserted the London 3 guideline rate of £319 per hour into the Excel spreadsheet version of the N260 he had been sent. The total reduced to £44,466.53, around 90% of the sum claimed [32]. He regarded that as perhaps a little higher than might generally be expected on detailed assessment on the indemnity basis.

The judge also noted that the travel, sustenance and transcript fees figure seemed a little high [32]. Taking these matters into account and applying a broad-brush approach, he assessed the costs at £42,000, including VAT [33].

The two strands of Mr Khan’s challenge therefore met different fates. The grading was upheld without qualification. The excess of the hourly rate over the London 3 guideline was the principal reason the judge gave for expecting deductions, even on the indemnity basis, where doubts as to reasonableness favour the receiving party [32].

Practical Implications

This is a first instance decision, but it gives paying parties a clear steer. An objection to Grade A rates resting only on a fee earner’s CILEX qualification is unlikely to succeed where the fee earner has over eight years’ experience. The more productive challenges are to the experience itself, or to the rate charged measured against the relevant guideline figure.

Receiving parties should evidence a legal executive’s experience rather than leave it to inference. Here the judge drew on witness statements already in evidence, which showed day-to-day control of the matter and competence as a litigator. Where no such material is before the court, a short explanation of the fee earner’s experience in submissions supporting the N260 may answer a grading objection before it is made.

Receiving parties should also expect an above-guideline hourly rate to be tested at a step back, even on the indemnity basis. Because the N260 was supplied as a working spreadsheet, the judge recalculated the whole claim at the guideline rate directly [32]. Practitioners on either side can run the same exercise in advance, so that submissions on the rate are framed around the figure the court is likely to reach.

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