Stephenson Harwood has received an absolute kicking in court after submitting ridiculously long skeleton arguments.

The SH lawyers got into trouble while acting for property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz. They were in the court of appeal this week for a hearing before Lord Justice Jackson, who is famously known for his desire to keep a lid on court costs. Accordingly Jackson was far from impressed with SH's liberal approach to document production.

As Jackson explained, practice directions require that skeleton arguments should not be longer than 25 pages. However SH lawyers threw the rulebook out the window when they served a 47 page skeleton, plus a supplementary argument at 34 pages, plus an appendix of 15 pages.

A seething Jackson commented:

 

   The underlying message
 
The only thing that could have been worse was if the lawyers turned up in Harry Potter robes. Stephenson Harwood did not return RollOnFriday’s request for comment as the firm was too busy brushing up on basic CPR rules.

Stephenson Harwood's full kicking can be read here.
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Comments

Anonymous 17 October 14 09:49

Jackson LJ, sanction SH and counsel on costs personally. It appears that SH and counsel seem to think that these rules do not apply to them or perhaps they are unaware of the same. The people who ignored these clearly need a refresher course.

Roll On Friday 17 October 14 10:30

It seems slightly unfair to blame SH for the contents of the skeleton arguments, which will have been settled by counsel.

Anonymous 17 October 14 11:08

A slightly strange story, because surely counsel would ordinarily draft skeleton arguments in the Court of Appeal, at least in a case as substantial as this. If they did so in this case it doesn't really seem fair to criticise SH. Also, it sounds more like it was the duplication rather than the length that was the problem. It's true that para 31(1) of PD 52C (a "basic CPR rule"?) provides that skeletons in the Court of Appeal should not "normally" be longer than 25 pages, but in practice for Chancery Work in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal they often are and with some justification.

Anonymous 17 October 14 14:43

Solicitors lodge the skellys. If they are too long or dont comply with PD52C - then SH should have pulled up counsel to shorten them - or put in an explanation at the start as to why the Skelly was longer than usual. Skellys are just that - to say just enough - and to leave the rest for oral subs and/or the authorities. Serves them all right.

Anonymous 17 October 14 17:05

Solicitors don't tend to lodge skeleton arguments. In the Chancery Division for example counsel or their clerks do it by email. Possibly in the Court of Appeal solicitors do it, I don't really know, but it seems extremely onerous to criticise a solicitor for not preventing their counsel filing skeletons that are duplicative or too long. If that is the solicitor's responsibility then barristers everywhere will be delighted.

Anonymous 18 October 14 15:43

SH have been blamed because they have conduct of the case. Counsel is a "hired gun" there to help SH. They do not have dual responsibility for the case. The document was SH's - that they subcontract to counsel is irrelevant.