News
piCalculator - Special Offer for PIBA Members
Posted by Piba · October 14, 2024 3:31 PM
Many barristers who are members of PIBA benefit from using piCalculator, a tool used by legal professionals calculating losses for Personal Injury or Clinical Negligence schedules.
piCalculator handles all the mathematical calculations, allowing lawyers to focus on the law. The platform is widely regarded as an established and trustworthy sector partner in the practice of injury law, attracting praise from industry leaders who describe it as "a heavyweight solution with lightweight cost.''
piCalculator is a cloud based, fully encrypted solution which stores large amounts of data and performs powerful calculations behind the scenes. It produces mathematically accurate schedules with explanatory notes that can be easily amended, updated and shared with other users or parties online.
Some key facts about piCalculator:
- Key facts accessible instantly
- Produce a schedule or counter-schedule as a court document with explanations of how the multipliers are created
- Interest calculated on past losses
- Future loss multipliers for continuous and periodic losses
- Create scenarios to compare different criteria e.g. changes in Discount Rate, alternative Heads of Loss calculations
- Care rate, tax and NI calculations for both Past and Future Losses
- Contingency rates for loss of earnings
- Continuous updates to ensure accuracy of calculations
- Full training and support
PIBA members can apply a 5% discount to the individual subscription by quoting the code which can be found on this page - which you will need to be signed in to see.
Further deductions can be claimed for multi-year subscriptions. Please see the table this page for further details. PIBA members renewing their subscription can also claim their discount by using the same code.
Multi-year subscriptions can be paid annually or in total upfront.
To subscribe, please use the email address below.
If you have any questions about piCalculator or wish to subscribe at a discount please contact [email protected]
Please do not share the code with non-PIBA Members.
10,000 Black Interns Sponsor
Posted by Piba · June 21, 2024 11:25 AM
PIBA are proud to support the Bar Council's engagement in the 10,000 Black Interns Initiative.
More information can be found here
Good news: the Bar Council and PIBA secure fixed recoverable costs uplift
Posted by Charles Bagot KC · February 02, 2024 3:01 PM
I am delighted to be able to tell you that rule changes have been announced today, coming into force on 6 April 2024, to address two long-standing flaws in the fixed recoverable costs (FRC) regime for advocates namely:
- The failure properly to uprate those fees for inflation for more than a decade. Advocates’ fees in FRC cases will see a 23% increase, implemented on 6 April 2024, as compared to pre-October 2023 fees. Whereas the original October 2023 rules only uprated fees from 2016, they are now being uprated from 2013, when they were last fixed;
- The inability of advocates to recover a fee for work done where cases are vacated or settled close to trial. The changes announced mean:
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- On the fast track (cases of up to £25,000 in value), advocacy fees will be recoverable at 100% on the day of the trial and the day before, and 75% two days before trial.
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- On the intermediate track (cases of up to £100,000 in value), advocacy fees will be recoverable at 100% on the day of the trial and the day before, and 75% up to five days before trial.
Today’s joint Bar Council and PIBA press release can be viewed here.
The Government’s Consultation response, issued today, setting out the changes to the FRC regime in more detail is here.
These changes will of course benefit barristers working across the fields of civil work in the County Courts but, particularly, PIBA members who conduct so many of the fast track and intermediate track cases.
Although the latest consultation response commits to reviewing fixed fee levels within 3 years (from October 2023), PIBA and the Bar Council continue to lobby for automatic annual inflation-linked uprating.
Other changes to FRC cases have also been announced which will also be welcomed by PIBA members, including:
- Clarifying that clinical negligence cases will only be allocated to the intermediate track, rather than the multi-track, where there is a full admission of liability in the pre-action protocol letter of response;
- Inquest costs will be recoverable, bringing FRC cases in line with the principles applied outside this regime;
- Providing for the recovery of the costs of restoring a company to the Register.
The welcome changes announced today reflect a sustained lobbying campaign by PIBA over years and countless hours of effort by successive PIBA Officers and Executive Committee members during that time. On your behalf, I thank them all. Particular thanks should go to Martyn McLeish, who has been at the forefront of PIBA’s efforts on FRC for many years.
In the past year, PIBA’s efforts have had the determined backing of the Bar Leadership. PIBA is enormously grateful to current Chair of the Bar, Sam Townend KC (and his predecessor Nick Vineall KC) and the Bar Council staff team, for their concerted efforts in partnership with PIBA, through multiple meetings with Ministers, the MOJ and the Judiciary, many written submissions and consultation responses, speeches and interventions at the Civil Justice Council (and similar) conferences. When last year the original draft rules did not properly address long-standing problems, the Bar Council sent a letter before action, as a precursor to a Judicial Review.
It is welcome news that the Government has finally listened and these overdue changes are now being made.
Charles Bagot KC
PIBA Chair
St John's Chambers Special Damages Interest Calculator
Posted by · December 12, 2023 10:11 AM
As you may know, the Special Account Rate has changed regularly over recent months, loosely following base rate rises. It currently sits at 6%. We wanted to bring your attention to the interest calculator devised by Matthew White of St John's Chambers - published on their website here.
We are really very grateful to Matthew for devising this very useful tool! It's hard to overestimate quite how important this is!
PIBA takes no credit for the calculator nor does it endorse its use or its accuracy - but we thought it might be a useful resource for practitioners to be aware of.