Australian Capital Territory Current Acts Australian Capital Territory Current Acts(1) A client may apply to the Supreme Court for an assessment of all or any part of legal costs.
(2) A third party payer may apply to the Supreme Court for an assessment of all or any part of legal costs payable by the third party payer.
(3) An application for a costs assessment may be made even if the legal costs have been completely or partly paid.
(4) If any legal costs have been paid without a bill, the client or third party payer may nevertheless apply for a costs assessment.
(5) An application by a client or third party payer for a costs assessment under this section must be made not later than 12 months after—
(a) the day the bill was given or the request for payment was made to the client or third party payer; or
(b) the day the costs were paid if neither a bill was given nor a request was made.
(6) However, an application that is made out of time may be dealt with if the Supreme Court, on its own initiative or on application by the client or third party payer who made the application for assessment, determines, after having regard to the delay and the reasons for delay, that it is just and fair for the application for assessment to be dealt with after the 12-month period.
(7) Subsection (6) does not apply to an application by—
(a) a sophisticated client; or
(b) a third party payer who would be a sophisticated client if the third party payer were a client of the law practice concerned.
(8) If the third party payer is a non-associated third party payer, the law practice must give the third party payer, on the written request of the third party payer, sufficient information to allow the third party payer to consider making, and to make, an application for a costs assessment under this section.
(9) If there is an associated third party payer for a client of a law practice—
(a) this section does not prevent—
(i) the client from applying for assessment under this section in relation to costs for which the client is solely liable; and
(ii) the associated third party payer from applying for assessment under this section in relation to costs for which the associated third party is solely liable; and
(b) applications mentioned in paragraph (a) (i) and (ii) may be made at the same time or at different times and may be dealt with jointly or separately; and
(c) the client or the associated third party payer—
(i) if the other of them makes an application for assessment under this section in relation to costs for which they are both liable—may participate in the costs assessment process; and
(ii) is taken to be a party to the assessment and is bound by the assessment; and
(d) the law practice—
(i) if an application is made under this section by the associated third party payer—must participate in the costs assessment process in the same way as the practice must participate in the process if an application is made under this section by a client; and
(ii) is taken to be a party to the assessment and is bound by the assessment.
(10) If there is a non-associated third party payer for a client of a law practice—
(a) this section does not prevent—
(i) the client from applying for assessment under this section in relation to costs for which the client is liable; and
(ii) the non-associated third party payer from applying for assessment under this section in relation to costs for which the non-associated third party is liable; and
(b) applications mentioned in paragraph (a) (i) and (ii) may be made at the same time or at different times but must be dealt with separately; and
(c) the client—
(i) if the non-associated third party payer makes an application under this section in relation to the legal costs for which the non-associated third party payer is liable—may participate in the costs assessment process; and
(ii) is taken to be a party to the assessment and is bound by the assessment; and
(d) the law practice—
(i) must participate in the costs assessment; and
(ii) is taken to be a party to the assessment; and
(e) despite any provision of this division, the assessment of the costs payable by the non-associated third party payer does not affect the amount of legal costs payable by the client to the law practice.
(11) In this section:
"client" includes the following:
(a) an executor or administrator of a client;
(b) a trustee of the estate of a client.
"third party payer" includes the following:
(a) an executor or administrator of a third party payer;
(b) a trustee of the estate of a third party payer.