Year of Call: 1987
Practice Areas
Mark James, MA (Oxon), was called to the Bar in 1987. He is recognised as an expert in the field of costs and also conducts professional negligence claims involving barristers and solicitors. He has extensive experience in insurance-backed litigation including personal injury (especially high-value claims and disease litigation), insurance contract disputes and claims for fire and subsidence damage to property and business (including subrogated claims). He also undertakes construction work and general commercial work. He was counsel in the leading case on fundamental dishonesty, LOCOG v Sinfield [2018] EWHC 51. He is the author of the leading textbook on experts, Expert Evidence: Law and Practice (4th ed., 2014)(Sweet and Maxwell).
Costs
Mark James has appeared in some of the leading cases on champerty, solicitors’ retainers and other solicitor-client disputes. He frequently appears in applications for wasted and non-party costs. He represented both claimants and defendants in the cost budgeting pilot schemes for defamation and in the TCC and continues to do so now that cost budgeting is generally in use. He is commonly asked to advise in cases that raise complicated legal and technical issues (such as the validity of DBAs and funding arrangements in group litigation) and has a reputation for providing incisive and practical advice. As a result of this expertise he is also frequently instructed in professional negligence claims involving claims against solicitors and/or barristers. Mark has been recognised as a leading junior for his costs work in both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 for many years.
Personal Injury
His personal injury work (which includes clinical negligence) is spread evenly between claimants and defendants. He has developed a specialism in asbestos-related and other disease claims including radiation exposure during the British Atomic Bomb tests in the South Pacific in the 1950s, a case that went to the Supreme Court. He undertakes high-value injury claims (including brain injury cases).
Insurance
Specialises in fire and property damage claims and policy disputes.
Commercial
He has handled freezing injunctions and injunctions to restrain breach of confidence, claims against fraudulent company directors (including claims under the Insolvency Act 1986) and disputes between shareholders and/or company directors as well as breach of contract claims for sales of goods and services and building and partnership disputes.
“He has the brain the size of the planet and is brilliant on very technical issues” and “An excellent technical lawyer and a good advocate who gives good quality, clear and concise advice.”
Chambers UK (2016)
“He has a voraciously academic approach.”
Legal 500 (2015)
PIBA
Undertakes Public Access work
Simon Browne QC and Mark James successfully argued that the Court of Appeal should allow a £2.2M personal injury claim which had started in the MoJ portal (for claims less than £25,000), which had been an abuse of process, to continue under the CPR Part 7 claim process. The District Judge had struck out the claim as a matter of discretion and a first appeal to the Senior Regional Civil Judge had been dismissed.
Whether a defendant’s offer that made no mention of costs actually included an offer to pay costs; and, if it did, whether defendant could overcome the ‘formidable obstacle’ test to recover any costs incurred before the expiry of a subsequent defendant’s Part 36 offer that was accepted late.
First High Court decision addressing issues concerning “fundamental dishonesty” within the scope of section 57 Criminal Justice & Courts Act 2015.
Read moreWhether members of the armed services were ‘employees’ within CPR 45 Part IV. The outcome affected the size of the success fee.
Six day trial on the meaning and effect of terms and conditions in an ‘all risks’ commercial property insurance policy.
The meaning of ‘special circumstances’ within the context of the ‘one-fifth rule’ governing costs in solicitor-client detailed assessments.
Whether CPR r. 35.13 contained a ‘sanction’ for which relief must be sought when a party failed to serve an expert’s report in time.
Meaning of the word ‘disease’ in CPR r. 45.23. The outcome affected the size of the success fee.
Circumstances in which discretion to vary an order under CPR r. 3.1(7) should be exercised.
Large group litigation claim on behalf of servicemen allegedly exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons during military testing in the 1950s – difficult points of law on s. 14 & s. 33 Limitation Act 1980 that reached the Supreme Court.
Whether the trial judge was right to exclude DNA evidence linking defendant to murder weapon in a Fatal Accidents claim.
Whether the court has any discretion to disallow interest due on a solicitor’s bill to its client in non-contentious work
Whether a solicitor’s indemnity against other side’s costs was void under the law of champerty.
Application of res ipsa loquitur principle to establish cause of a fire.
15th July 2020
Please see link below to the latest update from the TGC Costs Team.
10th December 2018
Please see link below to the latest update from the TGC Costs Team.
1st December 2014
The leading textbook on the law as it applies to experts (including bias, expert immunity and the admissibility of expert evidence) and procedural rules across civil, criminal and family proceedings.
31st July 2020
Simon Browne QC and Mark James successfully argued that the Court of Appeal should allow a £2.2M personal injury claim which had started in the MoJ portal (for claims less than £25,000), which had been an abuse of process, to continue under the CPR Part 7 claim process. The District Judge had struck out the claim as a matter of discretion and a first appeal to the Senior Regional Civil Judge had been dismissed.
Click on the below link for more information.
Read more15th July 2020
Mark James and Matthew Waszak argued out an appeal on whether a defendant’s offer to settle that made no mention of costs actually included an offer to pay the costs of the claim and, if it did, whether the claimant should pay any of the defendant’s costs incurred before the expiry of a defendant’s Part 36 offer which the claimant accepted late.
Read more15th July 2020
Please see link below to the 6th edition of the the TGC Costs Newsletter.
10th December 2018
Please see link below to the latest update from the TGC Costs Team.
22nd 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 more16th May 2016
Mark James, instructed by Stewart-Moore Solicitors, advised the well-known horse trainer Jim Best on the issue of apparent bias when it emerged that the chairman of the British Horseracing Association Disciplinary Panel that convicted him of misconduct and banned him for 4 years had the BHA as a client.
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