Year of Call: 1991
Practice Areas
James’ practice is predominantly concerned with personal injury litigation, motor fraud and costs. He is recognised by the leading legal directories as a leader in each of these fields. Respected by both those acting for Claimants and for insurers, he receives instructions regularly from many leading firms. James also has experience of all aspects of costs and regularly represents a leading legal expenses insurer on matters concerning their ATE products.
James strives to provide pragmatic and prompt advice, whilst recognising that if contested litigation is unavoidable then good preparation is key. Having been in practice now for almost 30 years there is little left to surprise him and being calm under pressure is but one of the attributes noted in the comments made by the leading Directories.
James is used to dealing with all aspects of personal injury litigation, including fatal accident claims. He is keen to ensure that the client, whether a lay client or insurer, understands their options and is properly informed and advised as to the best route forward. Whether the case settles at a round-table meeting or is fought through to trial, James will act as a forceful advocate for those who instruct him. James is trained to act as an arbitrator for personal injury cases run through the PIcARBS Scheme.
James’ knowledge of costs law also assists in ensuring that the pragmatic and commercial realities of litigation are addressed throughout. His experience of detailed assessments, and thus the careful consideration of how solicitors’ work, ensures that he understands the importance of a collaborative and pro-active approach to working with solicitors to ensure the best outcome for their client. James is a member of CADR (the Costs ADR service) and is able to offer expert evaluation and early neutral evaluation.
Trained as a PIcARBS Arbitrator.
“He’s totally dependable and you can rely implicitly on the advice he gives.” Chambers & Partners 2022 (Costs)
“A robust advocate who is sensible with the points he takes.” Chambers & Partners 2022 (Motor Insurance Fraud)
“He is very measured, good on costs, sees the bigger picture and is a very skilled negotiator.” Chambers & Partners 2022 (Personal Injury)
“Second to none on the subject of legal costs, he has a huge depth of knowledge. ’” Legal 500 2022
“An excellent advocate. He is very knowledgeable.” Chambers & Partners 2021 (Personal Injury)
“Costs-related matters are his speciality, and he delivers excellent, clear answers to complicated questions.” Chambers & Partners 2021 (Costs)
“He’s meticulous in preparation and very well suited to this type of work. He’s also great to work with and clients really like him.” Chambers & Partners 2021 (Motor Fraud)
‘A gifted advocate who provides very well prepared and polished advice in a down to earth and thoughtful way.’ Legal 500 2020 (Insurance Fraud – Tier 1)
‘Depth of knowledge and experience with a commercial approach to problem solving.’ Legal 500 2020 (Costs – Tier 1)
‘Helpful, approachable, knowledgeable and unflappable.’ Legal 500 2019 (Costs)
‘Strong all-rounder who gives pragmatic advice and is very approachable.’ Legal 500 2019 (Personal Injury)
‘Robust in cross-examination, excellent drafting and analytical skills which is key in the insurance fraud field.’ Legal 500,2019 (Insurance Fraud)
“A tough negotiator, who is compassionate and caring with clients.” Legal 500 2017 (Personal Injury)
“A sound advocate with unsurpassed legal knowledge” Legal 500 2017 (Costs)
“A leading costs junior who knows the law on ATE and success fees like the back of his hand.” Chambers & Partners 2017 (Costs)
“He’s a great all-rounder who is quick at turning papers around. You know he’ll fully consider them and look at every bit of detail. His advocacy is great as well.”
Chambers & Partners 2017 (Motor Fraud)
“He tailors his advice to the client. A very good advocate, very well prepared and very good tactically.” Chambers & Partners 2017 (Personal Injury)
“He provides strong technical knowledge and pragmatic advice.” Legal 500 2016 (Costs)
“He is a tough negotiator and an impressive advocate.” Legal 500 2016 (Personal Injury)
“He’s masterful as an advocate and his paperwork is supreme.” Chambers & Partners 2016 (Costs)
“He is always fully prepared, has excellent attention to detail and is very client-focused. He is a pleasure to work with.” Chambers & Partners 2016 (Personal Injury)
“He is a great advocate who is masterful in cross-examination and completely at ease when thrown curve balls.” Legal 500, 2015 (Personal Injury)
“He has great ability to know which cases are sensibly viable.” Legal 500, 2015 (Costs)
“He has a great ability to think on his feet.” Chambers & Partners 2015 (Costs)
“Robust, clear and organised, he takes a very thorough approach to cases.” Chambers & Partners 2015 (Motor Insurance Fraud)
“He is excellent – he takes a lot of time when preparing, is knowledgeable and gets on well with clients. He is very reliable.” Chambers & Partners 2015 (Personal Injury)
“A standout barrister at the cutting edge of costs law, with great advocacy skills.” Legal 500, 2014 (Costs)
“Equally impressive in court and in settlement discussions.” Legal 500, 2014 (Personal Injury)
“He has both great technical knowledge and a pragmatic mindset, making him highly attractive to those that instruct him”. … “He’s very robust and confident in his opinions. From our point of view, time is very often of the essence, and he’s quick at dealing with issues.” Chambers & Partners 2014 (Costs)
“He’s very effective at cross-examining and has the ability to take a witness apart.” “He gives clear, robust advice, his conferences are well-structured and clients find him easy to follow. He’s also a pretty tough negotiator.” Chambers & Partners 2014 (Personal Injury)
“very well prepared, and clever in the way that he approaches the issue” Legal 500, 2013 (Costs)
“James Laughland impresses with his “bullish approach” and “quick turnaround times.” Deemed to be “pure class due to his provision of pragmatic, sensible and punchy advice,” he is more than a match for anyone of his call.” Chambers &Partners 2012 (Personal Injury)
“a pragmatic adviser with notable interpersonal skills. Chambers & Partners 2012 (Costs)
The ‘impressive’ James Laughland is ‘technically very strong in relation to costs law practice, and is a first-class advocate with good judgement and very good on the detail Legal 500, 2011 (Costs)
“a class act” Legal 500, 2011 (Personal Injury)
“a very skilled and measured advocate” Chambers &Partners 2011 (Personal Injury)
“a tough negotiator…robust and meticulous” Chambers & Partners 2011 (Costs)
“a highly efficient and self-assured barrister” Chambers & Partners 2010 (Personal Injury)
A “great lawyer” Legal 500, 2010
“Incisive but laid back, he is an absolutely first-class advocate” Chambers & Partners 2009 (Costs)
University of Kent, BA (Hons) Law
Personal Injury Bar Association
Undertakes Public Access work
First High Court decision addressing issues concerning “fundamental dishonesty” within the scope of section 57 Criminal Justice & Courts Act 2015.
Read moreAppeared for the successful insurer in a 5-day contempt of court application against 9 Defendants. It was alleged that each had made false statements of truth in County Court personal injury claims in relation to 3 road traffic accidents that had not, in truth, ever occurred or not as described. The Judge was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the allegations were proved and imposed prison sentences ranging from 16 months to 4 months, suspended, on all the Defendants.
Instructed by Atkins Thomson, Simon Browne QC, leading James Laughland, succeeded in persuading the Court of Appeal (the Master of the Rolls, with Longmore LJ and Irwin LJ) that the Senior Costs Judge was wrong to hold that the new test of proportionality applies to still recoverable additional liabilities. The Court of Appeal has unanimously held that the saving and transitional provisions in CPR 48, combined with the more limited definition of “costs” applicable since 1 April 2013 (that now omits any reference to “additional liabilities”), together operated to preserve the former Costs Rules, with their attendant Practice Directions, to the assessment of costs that include additional liabilities.
Supreme Court. Newspapers’ Article 10 challenge to the payment of Additional Liabilities. James Laughland appeared as Junior Counsel for one of three Respondents in a combined leap-frog appeal brought by three newspapers (The Times, Daily Mail & Mirror) against their liability to pay success fees and after the event insurance premiums to successful litigants in publication cases.
Read moreAppeared for the Defendants in this expedited appeal heard before the Master of the Rolls and others concerning the issue of whether In fixed costs personal injury claims governed by CPR Pt 45 s.IIIA, costs were payable on the indemnity basis under CPR r.36.14 where a claimant made a Part 36 offer and then obtained judgment which was more advantageous than the offer.
Read moreJames Laughland, acted for the Defendant insurer on appeal where the issue for determination was whether a Judge had been right to exclude a Claimant, against his will, from court whilst another gave his evidence. Fraud had been alleged and the trial judge agreed to the Defendant’s request that one Claimant be kept out of court whilst the other was cross-examined.
Read moreA claimant in clinical negligence proceedings was able to recover in full by way of costs the premium she paid for an after-the-event insurance policy. This was the first SCCO case to consider the reasonableness of a post-LASPO clinical negligence ATE premium.
Orchestrated slam-on staged accidents “swindle” exposed.
Read moreDamning findings made against the First Defendant by the Judge below when making a civil recovery order against him and his company justified requiring him to give security for the costs incurred by the NCA in opposing their appeal against the order and for the costs of the proceedings below.
Acted for the Defendants in some of the 8 cases heard consecutively before HHJ John Mitchell at the County Court at Central London in which he concluded, based upon reliance on similar fact evidence, that all the cases were deliberate slam-on collisions and dismissed all the claims.
Consideration by the Court of Appeal of whether a judge had been right to refuse an employer’s application for a non-party costs order against its employee’s solicitors, instructed on a CFA, in personal injury claim he had brought against them. The employers had not shown that in failing to obtain ATE insurance for the employee the solicitors had become a “real party” to the litigation.
Court of Appeal decision on relationship between damages for unfair dismissal and common law damages for negligence causing person injury in the context of a dismissal. The Court of Appeal held that the Judge had been wrong to strike out the claimant’s case
Consideration by the Privy Council of whether litigation could be funded by way of a CFA with recoverable success fee and ATE for litigation undertaken before that Court in the UK, but emanating from a Commonwealth jurisdiction where CFAs were not available.
Consideration by the Court of Appeal of the circumstances in which it would be right to make a non-party costs order against a witness alleged to be a party to a conspiracy to bring a dishonest insurance claim.
1st June 2021
Please see link below to the latest TGC Fraud newsletter.
22nd March 2021
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the TGC Clinical Negligence newsletter, a twice-yearly publication containing articles on recent key legal developments in this field, as well as a selection of recent noteworthy cases in which Members of Chambers have been involved.
17th December 2020
Please see link below to the latest TGC Costs newsletter.
15th July 2020
Please see link below to the latest update from the TGC Costs Team.
21st May 2020
Access to the Cloud recording of 21 May 2020 Webinar Ask the TGC Costs Barristers! hosted by Simon Browne QC, James Laughland, Richard Wilkinson and Matthew Waszak can be seen below. Please use the following password: 0l=4?.6W
10th December 2019
Please see link below to the latest update from the TGC Costs Team.
23rd October 2019
Issue X of the TGC Fraud Newsletter, a publication we have set up with the stated aim of facilitating the sharing of information about decided claims involving issues of road traffic fraud and related matters, can be found at the link below.
17th May 2018
Please see link below to the latest TGC Costs Newsletter.
21st February 2018
Please see link below for Issue 7 of TGC Fraud Update, a publication we have set up with the stated aim of facilitating the sharing of information about decided claims involving issues of road traffic fraud and related matters.
31st July 2013
With Joanna Hughes, wrote the chapters on Conditional Fee Agreements, After The Event Insurance and Damages Based Agreements for Cook on Costs’ “Jackson Review Supplement”.
1st June 2021
Welcome to the latest edition of the TGC Fraud Update.
At the time of our last Update we were in the midst of the pandemic, a vaccine was a distant dream, and only a handful of remote hearings had led to findings of fundamental dishonesty and the exposure of insurance fraud.
As the cases reported in this edition of the Update demonstrate, the assessment of credibility through the medium of a remote video hearing has evolved into a practice with which representatives and judges are now familiar.
There does not appear to have been a downturn in the incidence of false claims, and there does not appear to have been a downturn in the exposure of those claims at trial. Those observations seem to be validated by the IFB’s estimations that, notwithstanding 3 national lockdowns, there have been 170,000 motor insurance claims in the last 15 months suspected to have been linked to crash-for-cash networks.
The way that we deal with cases may have changed, but those statistics and the current backlog of cases in the County Court certainly suggest that insurance fraud lawyers will be kept busy for the foreseeable future. It is important, however, to recognise that the time for the implementation of the whiplash reforms has finally arrived. It is an opportune moment to focus on the pressing questions for the industry: how will they work, and how will they affect us all? Will they achieve their stated aims of reducing whiplash claims while maintaining access to justice for genuinely injured parties? Will the mechanisms hinder or help the detection and prevention of fraud? We may not have all the answers right now, but Robert Riddell’s article ensures we are in the best position to be ready when the first cases cross our desks.
Read more22nd March 2021
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the TGC Clinical Negligence newsletter.
Read more15th December 2020
Please see link below to the latest 26 page update from the TGC Costs Team.
Read more15th July 2020
Please see link below to the 6th edition of the the TGC Costs Newsletter.
10th December 2019
Please see link below to the 5th edition of the the TGC Costs Newsletter.
29th May 2019
James Laughland, instructed by Natasha Fairs of Irwin Mitchell, has secured an award worth £6.5m for a motorcyclist injured by an untraced driver.
Read more12th March 2019
James Laughland, Shaman Kapoor and Matt Waszak are demonstrating the new electronic bill of costs at the Liverpool Law Society Costs Conference 2019 being held on Wednesday, 13 March.
Read more22nd February 2019
TGC will be holding a Breakfast Costs Conference on 27 March 2019 from 8.15am-10.45am at Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, London WC2R 3DX.
Read more17th May 2018
Please see link below to the latest TGC Costs Newsletter.
26th March 2018
TGC will be holding a Commercial Litigation Funding Conference covering all the key costs updates together with the recent case law on recoverability of ATE premiums on 12 June 2018.
Read more28th February 2018
James Laughland, on instructions from Gary Orritt of DAC Beachcroft, today secured findings of contempt of court against husband and wife, Harjit Singh Kapoor and Kuljit Kaur Kapoor of Brentford, London.
Read more21st February 2018
TGC Fraud Update February 2018, a publication we have set up with the stated aim of facilitating the sharing of information about decided claims involving issues of road traffic fraud and related matters.
Read more22nd January 2018
James Laughland, instructed by Roger Jones of Kennedys Law LLP, acted for the appellant who successfully challenged the trial judge’s finding that whilst there had been dishonesty, there had not been “fundamental dishonesty” within the scope of section 57 Criminal Justice & Courts Act 2015. Mark James, also of Temple Garden Chambers, acted for the Respondent. Both had appeared at trial and on appeal
Read more6th December 2017
James Laughland, instructed by Marsha Crosland of DWF acted for Liverpool Victoria Insurance in successful committal proceedings in the High Court. Mr Justice Warby has released a press summary which is attached, along with the full Judgment.
Read more7th November 2017
Simon Browne QC and James Laughland, instructed by Atkins Thomson, have succeeded in persuading the Court of Appeal (the Master of the Rolls, with Longmore LJ and Irwin LJ) that the Senior Costs Judge was wrong to hold that the new test of proportionality applies to still recoverable additional liabilities.
Read more10th July 2017
The Supreme Court has ordered Associated Newspapers Ltd, publishers of the Daily Mail, to pay costs on the indemnity basis. James Laughland, led by William McCormick QC of Ely Place Chambers, acted for the Claimant in one of the three appeals heard by the Supreme Court concerning whether additional liabilities are recoverable in publication proceedings.
Read more11th April 2017
Simon Browne QC and James Laughland appeared for two separate successful Respondents in the Supreme Court. Three national newspapers (The Times, Daily Mail, and The Mirror) were attempting to avoid paying any additional liabilities (success fees and ATE premiums) to privacy and defamation claimants funded by conditional fee agreements. The challenge was based upon the newspapers’ freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights
Read more25th January 2017
Simon Browne QC and James Laughland are appearing for separate Respondents in a three day challenge in the Supreme Court by the Appellant Newspapers (The Times, The Mail and The Mirror) to pay success fees and after the event insurance premiums to successful litigants in publication cases.
Read more14th July 2016
James Laughland, instructed by Gemma Wilkinson of Keoghs, acted for the Defendant insurer where the issue for determination was whether a Judge had been right to exclude a Claimant, against his will, from court whilst another gave his evidence. Fraud had been alleged and the trial judge agreed to the Defendant’s request that one Claimant be kept out of court whilst the other was cross-examined.
Read more23rd February 2016
James Laughland acted for the Defendants
Read more18th February 2016
James Laughland attends lauch of FREEBAR
Read more11th February 2016
James Laughland appears today in the Court of Appeal
Read more4th February 2016
James Laughland, on instructions from Simons, Muirhead & Burton, and being led by William McCormick QC of Ely Place Chambers, today appears before Mr Justice Mitting
Read moreWhen instructed in a case I will need to collect and hold personal information in order to represent my client. I will take all reasonable steps to protect personal information and the personal information of others that is provided to me. I will do all that I reasonably can not to do anything that would infringe a data subject’s rights or undermine their trust. This Privacy Notice describes the information I collect, how it is used and shared, and people’s rights regarding it.
I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a Data Controller for the personal data that I hold and process as a barrister. My registered address is Temple Garden Chambers, 1 Harcourt Buildings, Temple, London EC4Y 9DA and my registration number is Z464060X.
All or the vast majority of the information that I hold is provided to or gathered by me in the course of a case and/or proceedings. The solicitor and/or I will explain why we need the information and how we will use it.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires all organisations that process personal data to have a Lawful Basis for doing so. The Lawful Bases identified in the GDPR are:
a. in relation to a contract which the data subject has entered into; or
b. because the data subject has asked for something to be done so they can enter into a contract.
and my Legitimate Interest is that such is necessary for the proper discharge of my professional responsibilities and obligations to clients, opponents and the Court.
I do not use automated decision-making in the processing of your personal data.
I collect and process both personal data and special categories of personal data as defined in the GDPR. This includes:
I do not transfer any personal data to third countries or international organisations.
I retain personal data while someone remains a client unless asked to delete it. My Retention and Disposal Policy (copy available on request) details how long I hold data for and how I dispose of it when it no longer needs to be held. I will delete or anonymise information upon request unless:
The General Data Protection Regulation gives data subjects specific rights around their personal data. For example, they have to be informed about the information I hold and what I use it for, they can ask for a copy of the personal information I hold, can ask me to correct any inaccuracies with the personal data I hold, can ask me to stop sending direct mail, or emails, or in some circumstances ask me to stop processing personal details. Finally, if I do something irregular or improper with personal data the person effected can seek compensation for any distress caused or loss incurred. Further information is available from the ICO’s website http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public/personal_information and this is the organisation that to which any complaints can be submitted if unhappy with how I have dealt with a person’s personal data.
A data subject may request access to, correction of, or a copy of the information held by me by contacting me at jlaughland@tgchambers.com and / or by telephone at 020 7583 1315 and / or in writing to me at James Laughland, Temple Garden Chambers, 1 Harcourt Buildings, Temple, London EC4Y 9DA.
Clients may opt out of receiving emails and other messages from my Chambers by following the instructions in those messages.
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I will occasionally update my Privacy Notice. When I make significant changes, I will give notice of this by publishing the updated Notice on my Chambers’ website profile.
